Katten

One thing you'd benefit from is an overconfidant attitude. As a spines, you're going to be playing your best when YOU are the alpha for your team.

It's hard when you're /regen (which it looks like you are) because the enemy alpha is /regens weakness, so you've got to work out timing just perfectly so that when you attack you know your team will soon be drawing attention as well. So long as you're first you're going to make a huge contribution with only those two attacks.

Now two non-behavior tips
1.)Quills is an important toggle for it's lesser known tertiary effect, it keeps you from having to "redraw" since it keeps your spines out all the time.
2.)If teams are killing enemies so fast that you don't have time to get off spine burst/throw spines multiple times, than your team is fighting on too low a difficulty.

lastly, for extra solo-y goodness, for my spines/regen I turn the difficulty up to "team of 4-5" +0-1 (which gives you large mobs of mostly minions/lt's) then use every click defense I've got for the first mob or two. What you'll find out is after each mob you'll get so many inspirations that you can keep on pushing the rest of the map solely on that on going inspiration flow, since as you likely know, regen becomes godlike with even a single purple or orange insp.

P.S. (I only talked about two attacks) Ripper is incredibly wide range and powerful, throw spines definitely does not feel 1.67 seconds slow, I don't know the numbers well, but it's incredibly fast animating, certainly doesn't slow you down, the jump out of combat to use it was the only delay I ever felt noticeable.

Don't know if this has been said (didn't see it in there) but it can be obscenely fun in the high levels to set your Rise of the Phoenix up for high recharge/damage and just go all out Kamikaze damage. Fire Manip is good at that, (I used it on my /psy since I was always jumping into the fray to hit Drain Psyche/nuke to get enough recov before enemies died)

I mean, at level 50 what do you have to lose by dying? Some influence? you'll get it back nice and quick, and thanks to AE, who needs influence when you've got tickets.

It was good times when doing the LGTF, shoot shoot shoot, chief is just about to swing his sword and you're at low health? Nuke! Die anyway! RoTP! Continue fighting, but whilst invulnerable and with your end recovery back!

Playing with an AR/EN now as well. As far as sheer numbers are concerned AR has the most targeted AoE powers (buckshot,m30,flamethrower,ignite,Full Auto). Flamethrower makes it good damage, and supplies a non-KB power, then Full Auto makes puts the set at great to incredible damage, again non-KB.

However, the KB of buckshot and and m30 can be annoying... I mean buckshot is quality frontloaded Area damage. I've found it to be livable though, if this is for AE farms, most take place around building walls and map borders, just blow all the enemies in the group towards the nearest wall. (Bonus point, ragdolls stick to those blue walls and are helpless) if you use m30+buckshot you can reposition an entire mob quickly enough that your team shouldnt notice them spreading out for a moment.

It could be *easier* with another set, but nothing does area damage like AR.

I hate to be that guy, but I mean, surely there are other people that are impatiently waiting for i16 to come around just so we can play the game again.

I've had no luck finding or starting any team past level 20 up through level 40, usually 4-8 players per zone outside of atlas, most of them level 50's running past TF's or badging.

And that's on Freedom. Oh wait. That's on Freedom. Is it different over on Virtue? Is it worth paying to move my character?

You'll save a load of money and enhancement space by relying on one application of parry to cap your melee defense, it's also a good proc horse since it recharges quickly and used often, not a half bad dps booster.

If you dislike Aid pool, invest in some extra regeneration, you have a considerable hp pool to draw from thanks to true grit, which means a little percentage goes a long way... esp with soft capped D.

I didn't see you mention anything about wanting to play the abnormal AV game, so what you'll find out is that as BS/SD, you'll start to care less about extra defense, and more about extra recharge as you approach a safety cap. Once you can safely kill everything soft in a spawn with SC, and juggle everything else (disembowel + Head splitter) it comes to a game of how can I kill more quickly. If you have CP and Hasten, you'll have the end to sustain your needs since they scale with extra recharge.

Lastly, an excellent tactic for preserving stamina for an end heavy build, is to 5 slot your attacks with sets (get all the goods out of the bonuses) then to chop off whatever set piece is least important and replace with a level 50 end reduc IO. Especially in Shield Charge, Head Splitter, and whirling sword, where end cost is huge.
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GC is going to be one of those things that's fully up to you, going to give you some quick pros to the power though.

When you're fighting rikti magus, and they hit you with tremor, and your defense isn't immediatly floored, you'll thank the power.

When your team has a forcefielder, or other defense based defender, you will apply enough defense to the people around you to soft cap them (GC is about the same as dispersion field when slotted, and is not melee range like phalanx fighting). It's not your job, but it sure does give you a warm fuzzy feeling to watch a mediocre team go steamroller and feel like you've contributed.

It helps that the toggle cost is miniscule.

Again, your opinion though, Aid Self will make this pretty much impossible to have... What you may shoot for is a heavily IO'd Solo/survival build with Aid Self, and a group oriented dual build that has GC. If you're in to AV/PvP fighting

Don't know if it's been said, but the main things that took away my BS/Shields stamina issues were...

A.) End Accolades (far larger bonus than the piddly little rec+ Bonuses in sets)
(with exception of +end perf shifter in stamina)

B.) Give yourself a little recharge, pick up hasten, then you can almost constantly cycle OWtS and Conserve Power. Sure it wont overlap perfectly (before you really start kickin out cash for recharge). What you'll usually find though is that your end will last through to the time one resets, especially with lulls in fighting.

>So, that said, since you're /shields, there should never be any lull in fighting since you'll be jumping headfirst into every spawn to soak up the +damage and shield charge.
The endurance I had never failed to keep me running [while running all shield toggles as well as Tough] as you get towards 50, just make sure you're always considering more +end/rec, or more +rech to keep Shield charge, conserver power, and hasten up.

Final note, don't pass up +accuracy set bonuses, no one ever talks about them, but usually they are quite substantial. Usually the first 2 in any purple set net you 15% alone. Along with this, all attack sets give you 60-99% accuracy, far higher than the old staple 1-2Acc SO per power. That works two fold on your end.

Less missed attacks = less wasted endurance
More inherant accuracy means you can consider slotting attacks for end reduc instead.
Higher Accuracy means you will find yourself needing FA less often, so less drain.

Yellow Spines anyone? Banana/Bright Armor Scrapper

Dark Blast + Bright Yellow = Solar Blast?

It's amazing how much more I care about this stuff than i15, had my account DC'd since about 2 months ago, will likely pick it on up with customization.

Fire or Energy, Fire for it's incredible damage both ST and AoE (Blasters essence there) or energy, for it's precise AoE/ST balance and the "feel" of being a blaster by knocking stuff to all hell... and nothing gives you the same feeling as nova, nothing in the entire game, and your team will notice it every time.

AR - Missing Aim, sorry, but AIM+BU alpha defines a blasters true role
Arch - Well balanced, strong, a possibility but I find the visuals and draw time to be kind of weak.
Ice - too many controls
Psychic/sonic - animations feel slow, lower damage
Electric - So much lightning so little thunder, not enough bang.

So there's that argument, you can dispute it as a proponent to certain sets... but fire and en put the most cannon in glass cannon.

There is no power in the game that does less than 1.0 magnitude knock up, so the question behind that part of the mechanic is null.

There is only Knock up, more Knock up, or no knock up (complete resist)

*As a note, slotting for knock up in say, lift, becomes hilarious since KB enhancements break ED to near 200% and the mag is so high to begin with. Go to Atlas park and use it on a hellion, chances are he'll never see the earth again.

<sonic QR> but sirens is definitely nice for the blapper, sonic is a strong contender.

I'd say

ST Prime: Ice - Sonic == Energy == AoE Prime: Electric - Fire
ST Secondary: Energy - Electric == AoE: Fire

As for pools? Fitness and medicine are probably the most important.

Oh wow yea, you are missing out big time not having aim, extra accuracy is always good, maybe not so much WITH build up but then again yes, it's really for the damage.

If you open with something like Build up-->Explosive-->Torrent... add in aim before, and you'll absolutely hit everything you shoot and will likely make the difference between all the minions getting hurt, and all the minions dying.

50% more damage is nothing to laugh at when 150% makes it possible to take a spawn to it's bosses in the alpha.

So of the other -regen powersets (dark/kin/cold) (blaster with perma Drain psyche) which can solo GM's, any experience?

Gotta love clear cut Q&A.

As long as you're attempting to keep the KB under some sort of control (or even helping by knocking enemies back into the main mob) there shouldn't be complaints.

Energy blasters do plenty of damage, and the team mitigation (100% during the duration) is enough to offset any detrimental effects.

And for people saying KB is the worst implemented mechanic in the game. Imagine how dull the game would look if nothing did knockback. This is a superhero game, it is absolutely necessary we be able to throw our enemies around regardless of the numbers, it's a defining feature of the game.

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Munitions big draw is LRM. Its the best part of the set and you don't need it. You have Full auto and Boost range, so you have a sniper range nuke on a faster recharge already.

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There's nothing wrong with two sniper range nukes with a fast recharge right?

(Since Long Range Missile Missile is instant (non DoT) damage it can be immediatly followed by full auto, eliminating just about everything in the spawn before they can see what's hitting them.)

Best Blaster

I'm going to say Fire or Dark Melee. Bosses very often have at least one high resistance, chances are it's going to be smashing or lethal. So there's an edge, the single target attacks are strong on both.

That said, all scrappers are excellent at handling bosses... with the exception of spines, so pick whatever works for your concept.

Except for spines.

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"very, very little resists psi damage with the exception of robots"

And carnies. And lots of praetorians. And Psychic Clockwork. And Guns. And did I mention how many factions use robots? Psi is not one of the least resisted damage types, especially 40+.

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A good bit of Arachnos too.

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Dont forget Rikti

At least it cuts through invulnerabilities t9 power.

I could see some sorta pyre mastery making it in, I would be very interested in something making use of toxic damage also.

As far as khelds are concerned, oh wait they're not, please make a "Kheldian Power Suggestion Thread" if you want to argue for them.

The reason this is focused on scrappers is that there are 4 (or more) ancillaries for everyone but scrappers only have 3 (not including epics which each have many extra powers). That leads me to the belief that they might actually look at one of these one day and go "hum, yea, that's not a bad idea." and put it in because it (seems) like it's missing.

Scrappers are the only AT in the game with only 3 Ancillary picks to choose from. That always did seem strange to me when I hit proper level.

The Ancillaries are also the most diverse that I can think of (as in they follow no formula [hold, st range, armor, unique] etc..) Instead each set is completely different based on the concept of that ancillary.

That leaves a lot of options, I'm not going to start this off with my own suggestion, I just want to see what you guys have to offer.

Right now they have positive energy, negative energy, and weapons, so those are out.

Go!

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IIRC, the inspiration numbers are an artifact of how defense operated back when orange inspirations were first added. Resistance was considered to be significantly stronger than defense because resistance was a flat reduction whereas defense was a chance based reduction and actually contributed much less when enemies received +tohit rather than +acc against lower level players.

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I am beginning to find that many problems in this game are based on global rule changes affecting powers that are not adjusted to compensate.

Usually these are not overly obvious and can be dealt with by ignoring(as they have been) but for some reason I've been noticing them more often lately.

Maybe it's because I'm less busy playing the game so when I look at things like numbers, problems appear that it's harder to say "it's fine, I'll live" when it simply looks wrong

Yes the suggestion to make them better was thrown in last minute, any other more mathematically sound suggestions would be welcome.

As far as hitting the defense vs res cap is concerned, it is the disparity between AT based res caps, vs the universality of a high defense cap in question.

If all "could" hit res caps, and if res caps were higher for squishy classes (though hard to obtain, like soft capping is) then we might see people trying to using resistance to it's advantages (as in the example you provided) rather than building towards defense caps since it is well, possible given that most can reach defense cap through bonuses, or at least get close enough that a single purple will throw them over and because it provides pseudo-mez defense. Where as that is not even a possibility to many due to low +res set bonuses/inspiration values, and typed vs positional damage.

However, to those not familiar with the workings of defense vs enemy tohit, thanks for providing the information.

Make em better.

Defense inspirations are far more powerful than Resistance insps in every possible way. Reasoning?

Defense insps move up in larger increments per rank and start higher
small: 12.5%
medium: 25% (+12.5)
Large: 33% (+8)

vs Orange

small: 10%
medium: 15%(+5)
large: 20%(+5)

This makes absolutely no sense considering
A.) Defense is roughly twice as effective at mitigating regular damage
B.) Defense provides mez defense vs all via dodging completely
C.) Defense caps on all AT's are higher than the Res cap on any AT
D.) Hitting defense cap on any AT via purples can be done with far less inspirations (&lt;=4) and leaves you godlike for the duration
E.) Hitting res cap takes in all scenarios (except smalls at 7) twice as many insps to hit cap, and if you're a squishy class (70% res cap) than that actually means you still can't very safe and all mezzes will still land.
F.) Oranges new bonus was providing teleport res. Defense actually does that too, via dodging.

Okay.

So oranges. Make em better.

*edit* oh, right how they could be made better?

Double the values of each insp, that does not make them overpowered actually. Also, add a small bit of mez [u]resistance[u], that would not make them in anyway superior to breakfree since the effect is not immediate, nor does it prevent detoggling. Should include KB prot mag 1,2 and 3, considering "resistance" is thematic with that.

That would bring it in line with purples, almost, but close enough.

That might be too powerful in their eyes, what I don't understand is why dimension shift is a gravity power. What do different dimensions have to do with gravity? How bout instead it is a medium recharge semi spammable aoe knockdown click? that would be unique, and provide control.

The problems I have with gravity control are that several powers can be counterproductive. I love wormhole, but when you miss one in the teleport (and you're actually trying to move them) then you split the group and confuse people.

Then in dimension shift, it is a seemingly nice power, but again, often some don't intang, and there is absolutely no visible effect for the intangibility (that is really what's ridiculous).

&lt;QR&gt; Agreed with above, perfect for six slotting gaussians, also end slotting chops the end/s in half, and when used in conjunction with a never ending cycle of Conserve Power --&gt; OwtS, you shouldn't have end issues.

I enjoy hitting +4 mobs consistently, and really you should absolutely never give up build up, can you really imagine NOT hitting it before shield charge?
....
So,
1.)learn to cycle OwtS and CP to keep near constant endurance gain
2.)Slot FA with Gaussians when possible (for def), but until then, slot end reduction.
3.)Toggle off if having end issues when not fighting either high defense or higher level mobs.

It is a worthwhile pick, but since it pushes the limit it can require intelligent usage and planning, if you don't want to worry about it, don't get it, and if you don't plan with IO sets in mind, that takes some priority away as well.