ClawsandEffect

I've seen it a few times. No one said they hadn't.

The consensus in the thread is that the people who do so are idiots, and I happen to agree with the consensus.

I've also seen people recruiting for a team that insisted they have both an Empath and Kin or they weren't budging from their spot under Atlas.

(Those people are idiots as well)

Honestly, Willpower doesn't benefit much from purple sets.

The most common thing purples are desired for is the recharge bonus, you have no powers in Willpower you need recharging faster.

Claws is a fairly fast recharging and activating set, you don't need purples on that end of it either, since you should have enough attacks there will always be SOMETHING recharged for you to use. You can get enough recharge out of cheaper sets to run a good claws chain without having to pony up the cash for purples.

A lot of people (not sure if you're included in this group or not) want to slot purples in their builds just because they are the "best". Depending on what your build is, that may not be true. Don't slot purples just so you can say you have purples slotted, first consider whether you actually NEED them or not. In your case, the answer should be "probably not".

If you were Claws/Regen instead of Claws/WP, my answer would have been "If you can afford them, by all means, get them". But since you're Willpower, you don't really need them.

Really.

So you're saying a blaster slotted for ranged defense and equipped with Aid Self and Hover, can't come close to scrapper survivability? Not even when they can dictate that nothing be able to attack them except from the position they have defense to?

I have a Sonic/Devices hoverblaster that quite simply doesn't die. And I can keep pace with ANY scrapper on single target damage easily, especially when the fight takes more than a few seconds. And I don't have Build Up available to me.

I also have Siren's Song to make sure that only one enemy can attack me at a time, and if I use Screech or Taser I can wake them up one at a time and have them stunned the entire time. I have gone entire missions without even being attacked, let alone defeated. And this is with a secondary that is considered "gimped". The combination of Cloaking Device and a +Stealth IO means that most mobs will not see me until I attack, and since I open with Siren's Song they are sleeping before they get a shot off.

Now that we have the ability to get an AoE immobilize, on top of the tools I already have available, I can ensure that an entire mob be forced to attack me on MY terms. With my defense to ranged being around 35%, and having Aid Self it is very unlikely that I will die unless several enemies get lucky shots at once, which isn't going to happen because everything I'm fighting is sleeping or stunned. The combination of Soul Tentacles and Night Fall is going to give me the AoE damage output on teams that I currently lack (since my sleep is more or less useless on teams)

My blaster is easily as survivable as most scrappers, because I can dictate the terms of the fight. Nothing gets to attack me unless I decide to let it. My sleep will incapacitate all minions and LTs in a given spawn, and I can stack stuns on bosses to take them out of the fight.

And if you decide to say "Well, that's one specific build and doesn't hold true for ALL blasters".....well, if you can use one specific build to prove a point while ignoring the rest of them, so can I.

Fair points.

I usually take QR at level 4 just to get it out of the way.

I have leadership on my current build, it's another pool worth looking into for sure.

If I ever decide to reroll either of the two characters I have with the 2 year anniversary badge (unlikely), I'll be happy to accept that I'll be giving up at least a few badges to do so.

I suggested a solution already, which is to transfer the character who has the badges to a different server during a free transfer week, and reusing the name on the original server. It's not a perfect solution, but it's what we have so far.

Since I find it hard to believe that someone would choose to reroll a 6 year old character on a whim, you should be able to plan in advance to do such a thing. It's not like they release new, possibly more appropriate, powersets without any advance notice at all, or spring free transfers on us with no warning either.

If you didn't plan in advance and suddenly decided to reroll a character, the price you pay for lack of planning would be losing a few badges.

And is it REALLY that common for people who have those badges to reroll a character that old? I know with the way *I* play, if a character makes it that far, I am happy with them as they are and would feel no need to make them something different.

Do people really reroll their old characters often enough that something like this would be widely used?

Probably because the thematic match of Fire Blast lacks any kind of mez power, which defender secondaries all have at least one of.

Most defender secondaries have some kind of useful debuffing side effect to leverage.
Archery is the only current defender secondary that lacks a secondary effect to speak of, and it at least gets a mez power (Stunning Shot, or Arrow, or whatever it's called, the stun)

Fire Blast has neither of those in it, it's secondary effect is more damage, which doesn't do a defender much good when they get chain mezzed because they couldn't mez the LT that's doing it first. For the AT that is most susceptible to mezzes, giving them a secondary with no way to prevent them is like saying "Here you go, have fun dying repeatedly because a mezzing enemy chain-held you"

Yes, I am aware that you can have a Fire/Thermal corruptor. I'm also aware that a mezzing enemy that you can't kill in 2 shots is a nightmare for them to fight. You get caught without a breakfree and you're pretty much screwed.

That's just my best guess at it, I have no real idea why it hasn't been proliferated yet.

As far as Sonic Resonance goes, I'm expecting either that or Cold Domination to be the next set MMs get in proliferation.

I understand wanting to get as many badges as possible on a couple characters. My main character has almost 500, so I can't honestly say I don't care about badges at all. (and for that matter, I don't believe I ever HAVE said that)

Where the disconnect occurs for me is the people that seem to feel it is necessary to get EVERY badge on EVERY character they ever create. Not only is it logistically impossible, but I don't understand why someone needs to have 30+ characters with 900+ badges.

There are badges that my main character will never acquire, no matter how long he exists for. I'm okay with that, because I understand that it wasn't intended for one character to be able to acquire all the badges that exist in the game. Since it wasn't intended for any one character to have ALL the badges, I don't see why it is such a big deal that newly created characters lack the anniversary badges older characters have.

Yes, it's a bad idea. But it won't be that bad to wait a couple levels and pick it up at level 30 instead. It's a fairly important power, but not so important that you need it as soon as it's available.

Basically, in Regen the must-have powers are, well, everything except the rez.

Resilience is optional, but I recommend picking it up. If you don't have it yet you can get it later in your build.

Fast Healing is the tier 1 power, so you HAVE to take it.
Reconstruction: your main heal, I choose this one no later than level 8.
Quick Recovery: an endurance recovery power that is actually BETTER than Stamina, take it at level 4.
Dull Pain: your heal/Max HP boost, I take it at the level it's available.
Integration: your mez protection, and it also boosts your passive regeneration, take it AT LEVEL 16!
Instant Healing: turbocharges your regeneration for 2 minutes, it's an awesome power, and should be taken as soon as it's convenient (I take it at 28, but I usually plan my build in order to do so)
Moment of Glory: a power that, when used, will make you almost completely invincible for 15 seconds. Take it at 38 and slot for recharge immediately, can also be slotted with a Luck of the Gambler +7.5% Recharge IO.

On the Claws side, you want everything except either Swipe or Strike (you don't need them both) and Confront (hands down the most skipped power by all scrappers). Some secondaries might want to skip Shockwave, but being Regen, you want it to help you buy time to heal in.

The fitness pool is nice to have, but A) You're playing a set that really doesn't need it, and B) It's going to become inherent in i19 anyway.

As far as pool powers go, I'll list them in order of importance.

Hasten: This is by far the most important pool power for Regen. Your survival depends on your click heals being recharged, and Hasten helps bring them back a lot faster. Take it as early as you can and 3 slot it immediately.

Combat Jumping: Gives you a tiny bit of defense, and boosts your combat mobility. Doesn't need much slotting, so you can take it whenever you have room. Also gives you another place to put a LotG +7.5% Recharge IO (an expensive IO that adds 7.5% recharge to all your powers, not much by itself, but it adds up)

Tough and Weave: Tough gives you some smashing and lethal resistance (which stacks with the resistance that you get from Resilience). If you can fit it in, take it, slot it, run it. The less damage you take, the less you have to heal back, and smashing and lethal are the most common types in the game.

Weave gives you some defense that can be stacked with other sources of defense. It can also slot a LotG +7.5% Recharge, and it should be if you can afford it.

You can take whatever travel power you want, most Regen scrappers I've seen are either Super Speeders, or Super Jumpers, because the prerequisites for those powers are among the important powers for Regen to take.

Your goals with IO set bonus slotting, should be: recharge, recharge, recharge, defense, maybe a little bit of regen, a little max HP, and more recharge. If you have a choice between recharge or regen/max HP, always go with the recharge. The regen/Max HP is nice, but you already get plenty of it by virtue of being Regen, so it shouldn't be a priority (I like slotting for it so I don't need to hit my heals as often, but I only do so when it doesn't cost me recharge or defense)

That should give you a better idea about what you're doing. I'll try to throw you a basic set IO build when I get home from work, if no one beats me to it. And I'll explain WHY I slotted what I did too, so you're not just copying a build without understanding it. (it will also give you some insight into other builds)

Sorry, I should have clarified that it was more of a general response and not directed at you specifically. It was intended as a generic "you". You just happened to say the part I was quoting there, and it is one of the reasons usually put forth as a justification for making badges account-wide.

If one set of badges is made account wide that currently is not, it sets precedent for ANY badge to be made account-wide.

If the anniversary badges are made account wide, why shouldn't the healing badges be made account wide? I mean, I have characters that can never earn them, so they should be account wide so I only have to get them one time.

My main, the only one I care about badges on even a little bit, is a Claws/Regen scrapper. There is no way I'm burning a respec to take the Medicine pool on a Regen just to get a couple badges. So, those badges are closed to him.
I could just as easily ask for the healing badges to be account wide so I don't have to make character choices to get them. It's a thin excuse, that much is true....but so is "I rolled a new character and he doesn't have a badge that was obtained for logging in the month of May 2007". It tells you exactly what the badge was for right in the text. It was gained for that character being logged in during a specific time period.

If you want to reroll a character as something else, you can move them to a different server during free server transfers and recreate them with the same name. Since anniversary badges have no effect on gameplay, that should be an acceptable solution, but for some reason it isn't, and I don't get why that is. There was advance warning of the free server transfers, and you should have had some idea what you wanted to reroll the character as before then, it's not like they introduce new sets with no warning.

Not really. If scrappers are so much better, as is being implied, then one AV out of the whole TF shouldn't be a reason to invite an "inferior" AT instead, now, should it?

What difference should it make between a blaster, and a softcapped SR or Shield scrapper? I mean, it's her heal that we're worried about, right? If it doesn't hit you there's no problem.

Seriously? ONE AV is reason enough for a team to invite an AT that is supposedly inferior to a scrapper in every measurable way?

And because I don't feel like multiquoting here: If there's a need to be babysat on teams, that isn't the sign of a bad AT, that's the sign of a bad player.

I keep hearing all this about "blasters are underpowered!", and I'm just not buying it.

And I'd be fine with that.

I really don't care about vet rewards in the slightest. I have to be reminded that I have the team TP power because I never claim them on my characters. If they suddenly took all of them away, I would be one of few people not screaming bloody murder about it.

So why are you so desperate to have them on all your characters?

I mean, if they have no effect on gameplay, does it really matter that a new character doesn't have them? Does your brand new character play differently than an old one because it lacks an anniversary badge?

Badges are basically just bits of fluff, put in the game for the sole purpose of getting obsessive-minded people to waste hundreds of hours while paying the company their hard earned money. Why else would the top level badges for damage, influence, debt, and healing have been set so ridiculously high? I would be willing to bet the devs never expected anyone to actually get one of them, let alone all of them.

And they keep putting more and more in, because they know that some players who are bored with the game will keep playing because they just have to have them ALL.

Sorry, I'm just not buying into the idea that my newly created characters are somehow less cool than my older ones because there's a couple badges they will never have.

Really? That Dual Pistols/Pain Domination corruptor has been around for SIX YEARS? How'd you pull that one off? Seeing as how none of those things (Dual Pistols, Pain Domination, or even corruptors) existed 6 years ago.

I don't see how characters that couldn't possibly have existed when the badge was available can be justified with having it.

My main character and one of my blasters have the second anniversary badge. A few others have the 3rd anniversary badge, still others have the 4th anniversary badge. I don't feel that my brand new Invulnerability/Dual Blades tank (my most recently created character) needs those badges just because one character on my account has them.

And this is the entire argument right here.

You keep saying this over and over, and people keep replying that, no, they are not.

When you roll a blaster, you should be aware that you are getting Damage, with a secondary of MORE damage (and maybe a little control or mitigation). A new player may not be aware of exactly what they are getting into, but a veteran player should know very well what they are playing when they roll a blaster.

Any blaster can solo on 0/x1 with ease. Most blasters I've encountered can solo on 0/x4 or so when played by a competent player. I've seen a few that can solo on 0/x8, with a beastly build and a competent player.

Every other AT in the game can say the exact same thing. With just about the same variables. They can all solo at the default setting, a good number of them can solo on about halfway up, and a few standouts can solo high difficulty.

A blaster has soloed an ITF. Someone (I think it was Silverado) soloed a Giant Monster with a blaster. Those are feats that are difficult for ANY AT that attempts them, and they have been done by blasters.

And on teams? Well, that's where blasters really shine. I've been on teams where my scrapper had to split from the rest of the team just to get a chance to kill something, because the blasters were killing it all before I could even get in range to attack.

Underpowered, indeed.

If you want blasters to get more defense and/or survivability....be prepared to get the crap nerfed out of their damage, because that is where the balance point lies.

Blasters are squishy because nothing kills faster, or deals more damage than them over an extended period. Especially when teamed.

Answer this: If blasters are SO underpowered relative to other ATs, and scrappers are clearly so much better, why is it most optimized MoSTF teams will take a blaster before (grudgingly) allowing a scrapper to tag along?

But....it's a given that a tank is going to take longer to kill an AV solo, simply due to lower damage mods.

Soul Drain is going to kill all of it's fodder long before you kill that AV. Especially when you consider that AAO is going to be boosting Soul Drain's damage for every time you fire it.

So, it would probably be best to do calculations as though only one target is being hit by AAO and Soul Drain, because that's what you'll end up with by the end of the fight

Edit: I actually have a Shield/DM tank, the DPS is pretty good for a tank, but with only one target in range of AAO and Soul Drain, it isn't that great. Shield tanks need lots of mobs in range to deal better than average damage, and I just don't see that happening frequently in a solo AV fight.

Granted, for general teaming and TFs, the Shield/DM will probably do better damage, I'm not disputing that in the slightest. I'm simply referring to a very specific situation where there will only reliably be one target in range, in which case the Dual Blades with procs will probably pull ahead.

I had no intention of taking it because I need Energy Mastery for Conserve Power and Physical Perfection.

If I don't have those two powers my end is going to run dry in a solo AV fight, which is what I intend on doing with my Invuln/DB tank.

I don't get any end recovery powers within my primary or secondary, so making my build endurance sustainable is more important to me than an extra 9.75% of resistance debuff (which won't do me any good if I can't attack because my end bottomed out)

I suppose it could be useful if you're build is already endurance sustainable, but I don't see any way an Invuln/DB could attack non-stop without some kind of help endurance-wise.

Also, it is one of the later powers in the APP, which requires me to take at least 2 to get. I don't have room in my build to do that, even if I COULD sustain the endurance.

Yep, I thought the same thing. He even somewhat resembles Vicious from Bebop.

I didn't forget it....I just had no intention of taking it because it's a pretty crappy power for scrappers and tanks.

My plan is to just use the slots that I ALREADY have in Health and Stamina.

I'm using Fitness going inherent as an excuse to pick up a few powers that need little or no slotting.

Edit: Misunderstood the post. Second part of my reply remains valid, I'm planning on taking powers I don't need to slot much.