Cognito

I have one in the pipeline.

Throntrops plus Hot feet looks an extremely attractive combination.

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To be honest, I couldnt tell the difference if it was on or off. I was running it, enemies clearly debuffed, and yet they simply ignored me and turned to pound my scrapper partner.


[/ QUOTE ]You're both running a taunt aura, and the scrapper is going to deal more damage, so of course you're going to lose aggro.

Try playing with it in a team without other taunt auras.

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Never happened with my Ice tank, though.

Havent tested with the other taunt auras.

Limited expeerience. Was duoing with a freind who has a level 20 WP Scrapper.

Was running RttC. at level 9. No taunt slots.

To be honest, I couldnt tell the difference if it was on or off. I was running it, enemies clearly debuffed, and yet they simply ignored me and turned to pound my scrapper partner.

I probably got more than 50% aggro - but it was performing really really, exceptionally, badly.

Interested to know... Ive just got my WP tank to level 9. Has unslotted RTtC.

I appreciate its early days - and its only a side "project".

But this seems to be the worst taunt aura ever? I can barely tell the difference if its on or off? Im mainly familiar with Ice Tanks (and its obviously unfair comparison), but even compared to Blazing Aura it seems rubbish.

Anyone at higher levels finding any "difficulties" with this aura?

Wrong word. What was that word I was looking for now...

Ah yes...

Disgraceful.

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PRAF i am not disagreeing with you at all. I was responding to Cognito's comment that stalkers have no form of damage mitigation, which they do have, just not as noticeable.

At the end of the day, who you invite to your team is up to you, and I usually will try and avoid too many stalkers on team (2 can be effective when played well together, more is usually just a liability).

So to conclude, I will ask again that any discussion on the good and bad points of stalkers move to the stalker forum where they belong.

Please leave this thread for usefull hints about playing a stalker, especially if its ways to avoid annoying your team and how to be more team friendly, and of course praise for me :P

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As you say, stalkers have some damage mitigation. Its just that they have less than any other AT I can think of.

The guide is good. But I think the point is that Stalkers labour under such huge disadvantages in teams that it is a real challenge to get them to pull their weight. I have never seen it done - even close. And it adds insult to injury when it is often the stalker who is "last man standing" due to their uncanny ability to avoid aggro.

Long may this thread continue. The craft of PvE stalking seems very hard and this guide is very welcome. I would suggest that isolating the problems of PvE stalking is part of the solution.

I would LOVE to see stalkers doing at least OK in team PvE, but have yet to see it happen.

In addition, stalkers take TIME to do the good damage, and a steamroller team wont give them it.

Plus, with the exception of the almost non-existent PvE spines stalker, stalkers have almost entirely single target damage. Which means they actually end up to doing less damage than other ATs in large teams. I suppose Claws has a few AoE attacks now I think about it.

Even the best stalkers I have teamed with end up being distinctly sub - par. Aside from the fact they are outdamaged by every other AT (including dominators) in team PvE (due to lack of AoE), they do almost nothing in terms of damage mitigation (worse than every other AT) except for their own protection, but conversely generate the least amount of aggro of any AT.

THe combination of unperformance and aggro dodging makes me highly disinclined to say the AT does anything other than raise the debt and diffulty for the rest of the team.

TO an extent, this is reasonable given the AT is a solo-freindly AT - but I think its overboard. Its one of the biggest balance issues in the game, I think.

Yep. Sorry Shatter missed the AV fight.. as you may have guessed, my call to pick up duty came early.

Thanks for a good run. Thats always the "forgotten TF" for me.. keeps slipping my mind how fun it is.

Superstrength has one downside in team PvE. Only one AoE attack and an almost counter-productive AoE stun (Hand clap).

Elec has 4 (5 if you include the jumping charge power which i forget the name of). Making it, probably, the choice for team PvE AoE damage.

Dinged 23. I hope to be there.

If I can ding my Earth/Sonic Troller to 23, I'll pitch up MaX, but by no means hold a space for me!

Havent done that TF for a while and its a fun one!

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He means that stone armor is the worse tank because it's bad in keeping the aggro. I don't know tactics to keep aggro, so I've no opinion on the subject

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Im not sure Stone Armour is the "worst" at tanking. If you heavily slot taunt (enough for perma taunting) it is arguable the best vs an AV. But, of course, its disadvantage in tank terms is handling aggro. Often its not a huge problem when things go reasonably smoothly, but a Granite tank is the worst tank around when facing that second mob, or a load of flying enemies.

Granite is also probably the SLOWEST tank around in terms of a steam roller team. Even with teleport, it wont ever compete with other tanks.

But its horses for courses. personally, I veiw Stone armour as a Stone tank, and Granite as a mode you use only when absolutely needed.

With IO's these days, a non-Granite stone tank is pretty good, now that you can grab enough +run speed to make it reasonably mobile.

I dont think you can say "so and so" is worst/best etc. It all depends on the situation you face.

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It effectively grants perma, almost complete damage mitigation for every spawn bar the bosses.

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... until you get "Miss...", "Miss...", "Miss..." firing off - then you get instant debt.

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2 acc SO's / IO's should mean you hit 90%+ of the enemy unless you are fighting +5s or some other effect (like acc debuff has hit you.

AoE sleeps are a string to your bow but not needed. They can help when things go awry. The advantage of sleeps is they last a pretty long time, so dont need much slotting. On a team, they are of minimal use routinely.

Spirit Tree, again, is not routinely useful. However, it can tip the balance for hard fights e.g. AVs.

Seeds of Confusion is, IMO, the most over powered single power in the game. It effectively grants perma, almost complete damage mitigation for every spawn bar the bosses.

Yes indeed, meant dual blades.

Did DM/Elec up to 22 before deleting... and that was ages ago. But to FoTM for me atm, pardon my weakness.

Ok folks im thinking of rolling a DB/Elec brute.

Will be entirely PvE.

Will be team based, but not completly built for teaming. Lets say 75% team, 25% solo mix.

What are peoples thoughts?

Judging by DB fast recharge / animation times, and combined with Elecs +recharge passive... should be able to build fury fast. ? Is this overkill ? Will the animation times actually stop me from having an effective flurry?

Thoughts on this build?

Otherwise, I was thinking DB/Fire.

The trouble is, if dropping out of Granite, then above build has no fire, cold, energy, or negative protection.

Carnies do a fair amount of fire and energy damage iirc. So it would be barely worth it.

A fair number of Arachnos also do Psi, as do Rikti. In these cases, other damage types would be Smash/Lethal and Energy.

My inclination is that if you are getting Minerals, get Crystal armour aswell.

Although Im not sure "Perma Granite" is always the most efficient for a brute. They are damage dealers more than tanks, and Granite will cause problems dishing out damage due to direct -rech / -dam penalties, and problems building fury.

I think you have to decide how you are thinking of playing your Brute. If you are more "damagery" then I would tend to play out of Granite, and Id least get Crystal armour. If you are more "Tank-brute" then I'd get Taunt to aid fury building and make your self able to properly tank.

Id definately say get teleport.


EDIT: Given you have Boxing / Tough it looks like you are going for a "Tank-Brute" approach. Id say get taunt - no point staying alive if the rest of the team are dead. They wont thank you for it.

Last time I tried the STF with a tauntless Ice tank (Note: Ice i.e. best taunt aura in the game).

Tank when in running icicles and CE, spamming hits.

I debuff his Lordship with Rad.

His Lordship instantly ran to me and pounded me to the ground in under 1 second.

And that wasnt the only time. Tauntless tank couldnt reliably hold aggro.

Now, I dont know exactly how it the tank was slotted. But from my expereince and with discussions with friends, taunt is the only way to reliably hold a +4 AV aggro.

Has anyone actually seen a tauntless tank manage it? I am guessing if you 3 slot taunt aura with taunt mods it might be possible. But even then Im not sure - his taunt resistance seems off the scale.

As I understand it, Blasters are currently underperforming because they get more debt than any other AT.

Boosting there "performance" in terms of damage will benefit the whole team, but that will still mean Blasters underperform.

To my mind, this is the central problem: The team gets the reqard (more xp/inf/whatever), whilst the blaster alone takes the risk (more debt)

Long debate about taunt.

Personally, taunt enhancers are "optional" in my book, for an ice tank anyway. I bung one or two in, but would draw the line at three.

As regarding taunt. Personally, I find it invaluable, and take it on every tank, otherwise Im not a tank.

Reason? People face plant when things go wrong, not right. And taunt saves the day when things go wrong - or even better, stop them going wrong in the first place. In addition, it actually speeds up play. You spend less time running around "gathering". You jump / pull a load, and taunt the outliers.

All this for 0 End, and no extra slotting needed.


The only absolutely unequivical concensus on Taunt is that you need it for the Statesman Task Force.

If you like to PvP I would stick to attacks that do high Single Target damage, Quick animation times, and are poorly resisted.

Rad is not fantastic in this regard - its a mainly AoE set.

Assault Rifle and Energy Blast I would avoid.

Fire is a AoE set, but is popular-ish in PvP due to fastish animation times of the ST effects, and is poorly resisted.

Dark can be a right pain due to acc debuffs, and is poorly resisted, but is an AoE heavy set.

Sonic can be very nasty. Whilst it has a smash component, it is partially energy damage. It has lots of ST attacks (and two mez effects), and most annoyingly debuffs resistance (which can lead to a world of pain for your opponent).


Ice is, IMO, the king of PvP. Fast animation times, lots of ST hits, Slows as secondary effect (the best secondary effect for PvP probably). Cold damage is rarely resisted, although most Ice attacks have a smash component that is.

Of course, skipping out on AoE attacks makes you less of a force in team PvE.

Personally, If you are intent on PvP I would go Ice/Rad, or Sonic/Rad. But go with whats most fun.

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You know you're God-Like when you play a Scrapper thats been buffed by defenders, has a tanker taking the aggro, a blaster arresting all the minions faster than you, and a controller stopping you getting hit .

Fixed that for you lot.

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Fixed again.

THe power of an AT or sets is not proportional to how visible it is.

Whilst I would agree TA poison arrow should get -regen, its only because I veiw that as an underperforming arrow.

The rest of the set is generally reasonable, a few a little underpar (Flash Arrow), a few slightly overpar (Disruption Arrow, Glue arrow)

But then there is Oil Slick Arrow. Which basically is a "game over" arrow with a solid recharge. 3 xSO recharge, 3xSO damage, and an entire mob is as good as dead, PLUS extremely good damage mitigation.

TA is a late blooming set which puts people off. It relies to much one immensely good power (Oil Slick) to hold its own. Unfortunately, some of the lower level powers are lack lustre.

It should also be noted that recent patching has made -regen less "uber", although still highly valuable, against AV's, whilst reducing their resistance to other debuffs. -Resistance is now a valuable (not as good as -regen) debuff: and Trick Archers have the most -resistance debuffage of any set (With the possible exception of sonic if you can plonk the debuff aura on a tank).

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2. What is a scrapper's general role in a team?


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The Scrappers role in the team is to make the mob's bigger and more dangerous, whilst simultaneously under-performing compared to all other AT's (for team play); hence, the scrapper furfills a vital role of providing a bigger challenge and slowing down xp and inf gain for expereinced players.



Except Spines/Dark scrappers, of course. They are extremely bad at doing this fundamental scrapper task.