JayboH

I have a 40 wm/sd brute and even with end costs everywhere he seems to suck end like crazy. :P

Um, oil slick works 100% of the time, just thought I would mention that. TA is a very late blooming set. I love my 50 TA/Arch defender. The oil slick was fixed with Going Rogue finally after all these years.

Better yet, /fire can keep them in the burn patch even though fear was removed.

This is what I ended up with for my 50, now out of retirement due to the wonderful things Castle & gang did to TA/Arch:

http://www.wegame.com/view/city-of-h...-051846/sizes/

...and to think, Empty Clips is one of the worst powers in the set. No really.

Oh yeah I know - Ignite and Molotov Cocktail from Thugs now are the only burn patches with +fear. All versions of Burn and Oil Slick do not have fear.

omgwtfbbq!?

Cobra Strike:
Increased damage scale from 0.25 to 1.96

Well, I think the one to look at is Electric Armor, because that has a damage aura but still has kb protection, albeit a strange one (grounded, auto power, need to be on the ground.)

Damage auras are really, really wonderful - some years ago someone showed how they typically easily outdamage any other attack in a set play session. I think I typically put one acc, two end, and 3 dam in them.

So Electric armor is the oddball there, doing the same damage as death shroud. Ninjitsu is also different, as it has no damage aura yet has no kb protection.

Wait, Ignite got nerfed again? What did I miss?

Didn't read the thread, but as I've mentioned shortly after fire/fire came to scrappers, it turned out to be my favorite character of all time - and I've been here since CoH beta.

NOW, I'm as squishy as ever, as I have no Tough, but it seems I am killing, er, arresting - things, even faster.

I would like to know how fire/fire stacks up against fire/sd now. If it isn't the highest damage scrapper in the game, then more changes are needed. Even if it isn't, I still find fire/fire the best character I have ever made, of any archetype I've ever made.

Mine has tentacles and I'm not respeccing out of it. Enemies run when low on life so it's still useful.

Can anyone list the official changes? The patch notes are massive.

Ooh ok, hmm..

Fire (duh)

Ice (safe and great damage, albeit single target)

Archery (hits harder than you think, great aoe once tier 9 is picked up, just got buffed)

Assault Rifle (this set gets WAY too much hate - it's got more aoes than any other set. It has more non-lethal damage potential than archery, as grenade, flamethrower, and ignite -omg ignite- hit more targets than explosive arrow and the fire arrow. AR also got an overhaul last year, changing nearly every power's recharge/activation speed to nerf ignite's insanity.)

Energy (ah.... sigh. Energy is pretty much THE best solo primary IMO, but hated in teams and high levels, and yeah, it's for good reason, but sigh...)

Radiation (awesome aoe potential, especially paired with /fire, but you need to be in close for all those yummy attacks - the cone isn't very good, and barely any mitigation although I like cosmic burst being the heavy hitter that also stuns)

Electric (really not a terrible set but not great - Voltaic Sentinel is required power to keep the set viable)

Psychic (Eh, I took one to 50, I rather enjoyed it but I have ONE request - make tornado's activation/animation/recharge much better - that should be decently balanced, no? Having ONE aoe that also has to suck doesn't seem right. Needs decent accuracy to make two medium damage attacks consistently hit for good damage.)

Sonic (ok, this set could be bumped up easily, but that Shout animation/activation/end use with zero mitigation is truly awful, and the kb power has nearly no damage for an aoe which is useless since you get a sleep and a stun later. I LIKE sonic, it has really good damage potential, but those two powers need a retooling for it to be bumped up to replace Energy in my list.)

--
Dual Pistols - eh.... kinda reserving my thoughts for now. It is a very FUN set to me. Lack of Aim doesn't seem right for the swap ammo trade off. I don't find toxic/cold bullets are very useful for BLASTERS but they are for defenders. People initially complained about activation times but no, the speed of the set is fine - it just SEEMS slow because the animations are so gorgeous. I really don't know where I would put this set. It isn't a far cry from Archery IMO. The cone is TERRIBLE. Even fully slotted at 50, you aren't killing anything with that cone. Normally most sets can hit build up, cone, then targetted aoe for killing a bunch of whites, but the cone is truly, truly awful in this set, at least to me. Slow the recharge and buff the damage a bit, please. I never took the stun so I can't comment on it. Hail of Bullets is fine for the range and recharge, I wouldn't change it at all. I only wish Full Auto was as useful as Hail of Bullets and Rain of Arrows, but AR gets so many AOEs that it might just balance out somewhat.

I'm sorry, I'd want to lose the snipe and take dark oblit but would want tentacles and night fall. They could adjust the recharge/damage on those two. I don't get why no one would want it as is, as it would be unique enough to be of interest.

Course that might just be my greed, wanting tentacles + burn + hotfeet...

Yeah any time I am on teams with blasters using anything but incendiary, I scratch my head. I can see switching to regular for mitigation, but if I am tanking I want that blaster to use fire every time.

By the way, since I have not been around the blaster forum in awhile, how does the redesigned AR stack up in comparison to other sets? I think it was a year ago or so that they sped the whole set up and nerfed the recharge on Ignite by a factor of 5 or so?

I blame myself for those changes somewhat - I was bragging about my AR/Kin web nading, fulcrum shifting, and igniting mobs every 3 seconds (discounting animation) for over 500 damage that I could stack with any kind of recharge.

You can run in with bodyguard mode on, drop a poison trap at their feet with the FFG covering you, then the acid mortar, and the thugs rip the enemies apart pretty well. Only thing I would suggest grabbing is the heal from medicine, to fill the gaps from triage beacon.

I love thugs/traps, it's probably my favorite combo.

Yes, I think many agree the mooing is highly annoying. I wish they would only do it when summoned, and never while idle.

Ah, Master Floyd gave an update:

"Already saw the video and have QA working on reproing the issue. "

To each his own. I think they look great, although Ember Demons could be altered a little - make them thinner/shorter than the Prince. Their effects with particles cranked are wicked.

It gets nuts, even at level 12...

I don't know if this has been mentioned, I have not visited the Mastermind section in quite awhile.

Pay close attention to this video:

WeGame
or
Youtube

I summon thugs, train them once, pull out a FFG from /traps and I go through the training animation instead and toss all my thugs a clip. The FFG gets summoned like it should.

Then, I use Upgrade Equipment and pull out the FFG again. Now I toss every thug a duffel bag.

Last, I dismiss one, resummon him, then use the FFG, and he actually gets trained for both powers this way without me ever using the training abilities outright.

Anyone else having this screwy bug? This happens with both using the tray icon, ctrl-1, or a bind. I do NOT have a bind issue, before anyone asks, and it wouldn't toss everyone a clip or duffel bag anyways.