ClawsandEffect

I had issues with it LOOOOONG before I17. Like, I9-I10 or so. I'm perfectly happy with my Nvidia card, so I see no reason to go spend more money to replace something that is working just fine for me.

If you like AMD, and find that it works well for you, by all means use one. I recommended an Nvidia card because my personal experience with AMD left a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, I was simply stating my personal preference, and explaining the reason for that preference. .

Yes, it will work exactly like you think it will.

However, all purples are unique, meaning you can only slot ONE of any particular enhancement on your entire build. That means if you slot a Stun/End and an Acc/Stun/Rech you can't slot those two pieces anywhere else.

Personally, I'd just slot 5 of them into one power to get the accuracy and recharge bonuses too. But if those aren't important to you, slotting 2 in 3 different powers will work.

Well, you mentioned that you were running back-to-back missions after joining the global channel.

Just to put it in perspective for you: Every time you entered a mission door, anyone looking for people would no longer see YOU either. Since people spend a lot of time running missions, that's a lot of time they aren't visible in the city zones at large.

I've noticed that traffic tends to be sporadic, and often consisting of 8 people at a time as people finishing up TFs go to WW to sell off their stuff or to a trainer to train up the levels they gained.

Well, until stalkers got it, that particular form of criticals was unique.

Containment is a form of critical...but your opponent must be mezzed in some fashion in order for it to work.

Scourge is a form of critical....that can only happen when your opponent is at 50% health or less.

Assassination is a form of critical.....but you must be in Hide, or your opponent mezzed in order for it to work.

Domination is basically a form of critical hold....but you must fill up a bar by using mezzes and attacking to get the benefit of it.

VEATS get a stealth strike that is essentially a variant of Assassination....it requires you to be stealthed to use it.

Scrappers had the only critical that required no preexisting conditions to be met in order to work. You just attacked, and sometimes a crit would happen. Their particular form of criticals was unique to them alone....until stalkers got the same mechanic.

Simply the fact that I took offense to being told what amounts to "Shut up and stop whining" for doing nothing more than mention that I was annoyed by something.

I didn't go off on a long tangent. I didn't say it made scrappers obsolete, or that stalkers didn't need a buff. In fact, I agreed at the time that the buff to stalkers was both needed and justified.

I took exception to one point: The fact that stalkers got random criticals, just like scrappers, only they got a better base chance for it to happen. And they got an increase to that chance based on teammate proximity.

The random crits, I had no issue with. Even the teammate proximity buff I could accept. (It makes sense thematically, they're taking advantage of their opponents' distraction to hit a vital point) What annoyed me was the superior base chance of critting they got. Had they gotten the exact same chance to crit as scrappers, I would have been okay with it. Similarly, if they had buffed scrappers' chance to crit to match, I would have had no issue.

As it is, it feels kind of like they took away the uniqueness by giving stalkers a copy of the scrapper inherent, while letting them keep the majority of their own inherent. I would be just as annoyed if they gave Dominators Containment while letting them keep Domination, or giving blasters both versions of Defiance simultaneously, or giving Corruptors both Scourge and Vigilance.

And I'm not even THAT annoyed about it. I hadn't even thought about it for quite a while until I read this thread. I've mentioned it maybe twice in passing in the last year or so.

Oh, well if it's perfectly fair for stalkers to get that....let's give Corruptors Defiance too, on top of the Scourge they already have.

- Stalkers already had the ability to land an automatic critical hit any time they wanted to.
- Scrappers have a 5-15% chance to land a critical that is completely beyond their control.

- Stalkers then got a higher chance to crit at any time, and when teammates are in range that chance substantially increases to a maximum of around 30%.
- Scrappers still have a 5-15% chance to land a critical that is beyond their control, whether there are any teammates nearby or not.

It doesn't bother me enough to go post thread after thread complaining about it, or rage-delete my scrappers because stalkers are "better". I said it annoys me, there's a BIG difference between simply stating that I'm annoyed by something and whining about it.

Lets take something that annoys you about the game and tell you that you're being whiny and have no right to complain and see how YOU feel about it. You said I'm entitled to my opinion, and that your opinion was that I am being whiny. My opinion of that is that you are being a self-righteous ***, and have no business telling me what I'm supposed to think of something, just because you don't see a problem with it.

Guess what? I'm entitled to that opinion too.

If you click both powers the instant they come back up, you should be at perma Dull Pain already.

My Claws/Regen is sitting at 45% global recharge and my Dull Pain is only off perma by about 7-10 seconds. I need 2 more LotG 7.5% Recharges, I have teh space for them, jut don'thave the cash right now.

Because tanks don't get ranged sets.

You're proposing that the AT worst equipped for melee get sets that force it to be there? The only thing squishier than a defender in melee is a petless MM.

You'll get Dual Archery first.

Actually it's Spirit Shark, scroll down a little bit in the link and you'll see it.

It's available to Stalkers, Brutes, Soldiers, and Widows.

I'm still annoyed by that, and it's been about 2 years.

Not only did stalkers get the scrapper inherent, while keeping their own inherent, but they got a better version of it.

Still think scrappers should get the bonus to critical chance while teamed to even it out.

Sure it would. Parry gives you Lethal defense too.

But.....you can see a non-stalker, non-VEAT at stealth cap by just popping a couple yellows. Inspirations are available to everyone, and yellows add to your preception as well as your accuracy. Base perception is 500 feet. Stealth cap is 571 feet. The +Perception IO alone will get you close to that or over it, since it adds 20% (but I'm not sure how hard that is hit by DR) 20% gives you 600 feet of perception, one yellow on top of that will let you see anyone that isn't a stalker or VEAT anywhere within threat range. 2-3 yellows will do the same even if you lack any perception buffs.

Brute is fine, for the most part Fiery Aura is fine.

Dual Blades is the problem here. It's not a bad set in PvE but in PvE it has a couple problems that hurt it's performance - redraw and fairly long animations.

Redraw - You will have to redraw your swords every time you use a power that is NOT part of Dual Blades. If you use your heal, Fiery Embrace, a pool power, throw a shark, etc., you will put your swords away to do it and then pull them back out again to use your next Dual Blades attack. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but PvP is very active and fast paced here. That time you spend putting your swords away and pulling them back out adds up in the long run, and can be the difference between victory and a faceplant if you and your opponent trigger an attack at the same time. If you are both low on health and you have to draw your weapon and the other guy doesn't, more often than not you will die because of it.

Long animations - Dual Blades has some of the longer animations for melee attack sets. You cannot do ANYTHING else while your attack is animating, so if you need to heal but you're in the middle of One Thousand Cuts, you're pretty much screwed. You also can't MOVE while your attacks are animating, so any time spent rooted in an animation is time spent vulnerable to attack.

I concur with Donna on the suggested sets. Super Strength and Fire Melee would be my first choices. I don't like Energy, bu it's not a horrible set.

Dark Melee isn't bad, and if you worry about theme at all it matches up nicely with Soul Mastery (which contains 2 great powers for brutes, Gloom and Darkest Night). Dark Melee also includes a heal that is also one of the harder hitting attacks in the set, and the whole set debuffs their accuracy.

Never played Stone. I'd avoid Battle Axe and War Mace, because they have some of the same problems as Dual Blades (War Mace hits a LOT harder and has shorter animations though)

I personally like Claws (like my name didn't give that one away ), but it's not the best set for PvP. Not the worst set either though.

Secondary-wise, Invulnerability, Willpower, Electric Armor are all good. Energy Aura, Fiery Aura, Super Reflexes, and Shield Defense are kind of middle of the road. I would avoid Dark Armor and Stone, Dark is kind of squishy in PvP, and Stone lacks mobility. ENergy, Super Reflexes, and Shield have a problem that the other sets lack: their weakness is your opponent's accuracy....and your opponents are likely to have a LOT of accuracy.

The FF/Dark Defender could be fun. Could even get a few wins in duels if you run into someone without much KB protection. Defender Force Bolt is nasty.

I'm leveling a Mind/Energy Dom for the same reason, can get some serious KB out of Power Push, and it's base accuracy is really high.

No, you can't use Grant Invisibility on yourself, it is a team buff power only. Stealth and Invisibility are the personal stealth powers.

Okay, here's how stealth works in PvP:

Stealth is measured in feet, as is perception. If your stealth rating is higher than your opponent's perception, you will remain unseen for as long as you do not attack. If their perception rating is higher than your stealth rating, the difference between them is how far away they can see you from. So, if you have 500 feet of stealth, and your opponent has a perception of 550, they will see you from 50 feet away.

That's where non-Stalker characters get burned. Stalkers have a stealth cap of 1143 feet. The absolute perception cap is 1153 for eveything but a villain epic AT (theirs is over 1200)
So, a stalker at stealth cap will only be seen by another character at the perception cap when they get within 10 feet.

The stealth cap for non-stalkers is 571 feet. And base perception is 500 feet. So any character who wants to see stealthed opponents only needs another 200 feet of perception in order to make that stealth completely redundant, because that will let them see you from more than the range of any of their powers but a snipe. Some PvPers will tell you that stealth is a good thing in PvP, but I'm not so sure about that.

That said, the Concealment pool IS a good idea for PvP, but not for the reason you were thinking. The reason it is a good idea is for the 4th power in the pool: Phase Shift. Phase Shift makes it to where only another character who is phased can hit you. So if you get in over your head you can Phase and get out of there.

I don't recommend Dual Blades/Fiery Aura for PvP at all. Hate to tell you, but you picked a combo that is towards the bottom of the effectiveness list for brutes. If you're really dead set on it you can go level it, but when you start PvPing with it you're likely to be disappointed with it's performance.

I actually go by a different damage metric with mine:

DPBSITF = Damage Per Broadsword in The Face.

I've gotten Black Swan, Malaise, Mother Mayhem, Chimera, and Neuron with my build. Nerron killed me twice, no one else managed it.

Come to Pinnacle.....we have beer

Though I'd say it really does sound more like a case of different interests. I like to PvP, but it's not all I do by any stretch of the imagination, if you got ahold of me I'd be happy to run some missions with you at least. Global is @Claws and Effect. I'm on pretty randomly, so it might take a few tries to contact me, but I'm usually willing to team for just about anything.

I have some lowbie characters elsewhere, and a couple higher levels on Virtue if that helps at all.

Well, if you've PvPed on Pinnacle, you probably have, that's where 90% of my PvP happens.

Names: Claws and Effect, Marshall Stack, Halfstack, Chris Dawnslayer, Return to Cinder.

There are a slew of others, but those 5 are the ones I PvP with most often. I'm leveling a dominator that I will use for PvP named Cranial Trauma (Mind/Energy)

The inspiration thing I forgot about, because I don't use them often, and I'm usually stationary when I do.