Miladys_Knight

Welcome back to the game. Lots of things have changed.

What BrokenPrey said plus:

The reistance slotting in deflection is giving you very marginal benefit. You might want to consider moving those slots elsewhere (Build up is begging for another slot)

Battle Agility is all of your Ranged and AoE defense. You need to take it MUCH earlier in your build.

Defense IO in Combat Jumping rather than a Jump IO.

The end mod enhancer in One with the Shield isn't needed. If you are having end problems you are better off changing the slotting on your high end cost attacks.

If you get all the +hit point accolades the extra heal slotting is also unneeded. True Grit with 3 Heal IOs, all the +hit point accolades, and the unenhanced version of OWtS puts you ~100 hit points below the scrapper hit point cap.

Grant cover doesn't need the end red in it. It's .16 end per second which is where most toggles are after they have been slotted for end red. The end red IO here is only saving you .04 end/sec.

[ QUOTE ]

My Goal is to be able to solo well crowded maps. Do some nice damage while being hard to kill.


[/ QUOTE ]

To do the above you want:

Primary - Fire
Secondary - Kin, Rad, or Storm
Epic - Ice or Stone

Well the things that I have done that work best....

1) Slows are good. Especially AoE slows.
2) Psi damage is good for the clockwork missions.
3) Toxic resistance is good for the Vahz missions.
4) Control is good for the CoT missions.
5) Extra recovery and recharge are good.

1) Ice/ blaster or /Ice defender works well here.
2) /MM is perfect here. So is a /Psi defender
3) FF/* defender or */FF controller is best here since Deflection Shield grants 40% resistance to toxic damage. Dark armor melee is good here too either a Dark/* tank or */Dark Scrapper.
4) Any controller here is good but a control set the matures quickly is best. Plant comes to mind.
5) The only way to get both of these in one package is a Kin/* defender.

Tha fastest time I ever ran a posi was on a 4 man (1:58) that consisted of a Plant/TA controller, an Ice/MM blaster, a Dark/Fire Tank, and a Kin/Ice defender.

All four players had the TP to mission door power and the vet recall team power. The Plant/TA had a Stealth IO, Super Speed and recall friend.

Edit - If I were going to solo it with the stuff in my stable. I'd be using my Sonic/Ice blaster or my Plant/TA.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hell, Goat, you could have even asked me what specifically I didnt LIKE about it and how YOU could help, look at my questions and posts elsewhere in this forum, I take advice VERY receptively even on things I really dont like only because I cant quite figure them out.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I could, but...

[ QUOTE ]
Not a market "hater" per se, just feel like maybe it could use some work or a different system.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless you're a fan of merging the markets, or abandoning the lame half measures of merits and tickets, we don't have much common ground.

[/ QUOTE ]

*Looks down at Goat's feet*

Hey, that ground is the same ground I'M standing on! lol

Yes! Yes! Oh for the love of HALLE BERRY yes they need to do something about the merit situation, and in MY opinion, the ticket situation too.

And for now, lets just agree to disagree about the market I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

They did. They decided that some content awarded too many merits and some awarded not enough and they changed them.

They also saw that MA was over rewarding compared to the goals they set for it and changed that too. The changes made things take longer. That is the direction the devs wanted and the direction they went.

They did the same thing with merits. They went from the 10-20 minute Virgil/Katie/Eden standard to the 60 minute ITF standard. While it made the painfully long and boring content slightly more worthwhile the real goal was to increase the time it took to get the shineys by roughly triple on average.

Chances of making it quicker, as you want, or as it was during the Meow farms are pretty clearly NOT the direction the devs are heading now or any time in the near future.

[ QUOTE ]
[But here's what I dont get...

How come when people come in here to "complain" as you guys say, about the market, yall jump down their throat. THEN when they go to defend themselves and others like them, you feel like you need to force your opinion down their throats and sway them. Now, I agree, yes, knowledge of the system DEFINATELY helps. But just because I understand the inner workings of, lets say, some other country's government, that doesnt mean I like the way it works.(bad analogy? sorry couldnt think of anything else at the moment lol)


[/ QUOTE ]

How about a more appropriate analogy?

Someone comes into our back yard. Looks at the immaculate landscaping we spent 4 years of careful cultivation and research to do even to the point that we even have our own hybrid roses.

If they ask a question like, "how do you get roses like that to grow?" We will spend hours telling you exactly how to get roses just like this, or maybe even roses better than this, or roses that are almost as good but don't take nearly the effort. You are welcome to stay in our back yard and watch us work and if you want you can even help us transplant stuff, we might even give you a cutting.

If you instead come into our back yard that has immaculate landscaping we spent 4 years of careful cultivation and immediately say," Those rose flowers smell funny, I only want periwinkle blue ones, with out thorns, that smell like pancakes and syrup. I don't want to have to use fertilizer, weed, or in other ways dig in the dirt because dirt diggers are second class citizens. Oh and I want all this in 2 days capice?"

GET OUTTA MY YARD!

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, I've thought of a few ways the devs can address the inherent advantage of marketeering. First and easiest: put in a store that sells recipes. Uncommons 10 million per. Rares 20 million per. Ultra rare and PvP: 50 million per. The market would still be the cheapest way to get everything (after an adjustment period), but it would also effectively cap prices (without any way to work around it: the price caps would be set by the market as it adjusts.)


[/ QUOTE ]

You might be surprised at just how uniformed (read that as stupid if you like) many of the market haters are. Several of us here have made influence by buying Common end mod recipes from the invention tables and listing them higher than table + 10%. They sell too and many times they sell immediately.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Not if everyone lists the item for a certain amount, and that is my fundamental problem with the Market. I can list what I WANT to pay till I'm blue in the face, but if no one sells it for that, I'll never get it, even if it is a reasonable amount.

[/ QUOTE ]
You don't get to define "reasonable", that's up to the playerbase as a whole.

If you leave a bid up for a good while and it still doesn't fill, you aren't valuing the item correctly and other people are.

I can bid 100k on a LotG recharge and never get it.
Because that isn't a reasonable bid, however hard I wish for it to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

And the person that flips the LotG (Example only for prices) buy buying them at 30mil, and re-listing them all for 100mil has artificially created that price knowing that eventually people will want them enough to pay that much.

Its the sad reality that greed affects MMORPS where the money isn't even real.

[/ QUOTE ]

You do realize, I hope, that the "items" that you are talking about in regards to greed are non-real as well and unlike the real world or most other MMOs aren't required to progress or live in the environment in question.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

My whole idea with this apparently-forgotten guide is to have OBJECTIVE, VERIFIABLE statements that cannot be argued.

[/ QUOTE ]

Anti-market zealots won't believe you.

After all the world is flat and if you say differently you are lying or mistaken.

[/ QUOTE ]

And at some point self parody always kicks in.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually Swell is right. Check here.

The Flat Earth Society

They are spreading their ridiculous propaganda on the WWW which relys on satalite communication which is only needed due to line of sight caused by a globular world.

Like many agencies and people of this type they "prove" their point by omitting information that disproves it, by labeling it a manufactured conspiracy, or by trying to discredit the source of the information with non-relevant subject matter.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Taunt is there for a reason too. It's their for the tanker's role.

It seems to me that a tanker not taking Taunt is denying the whole point of the archetype.

[/ QUOTE ]

My SD Tank doesn't have Taunt nor does my Invul and Ice. When I use them, teams seem to go quite well.

What do you say about my Tauntless Tanks?

[/ QUOTE ]

As long as it's not a KHTF, STF, or Hami raid you are good to go.

As an FYI if the FF/ defender you are playing is an FF/Dark, the mobs that you provoke under you stay there if you use Tenebrious Tenticles on them.

My FF that uses this tactic is an FF/Dark/Dark. Provoke costs no end so it gives you some relief on your blue bar. The AoEs that I alternate are T_T and Nightfall.

Yes, I've done this. You have to focus on arcane enemies only while leveling. Arcane salvage still commands the best prices in the blue side market at least until you hit tier 3 where it balances out a bit better.

In the tier 1 salvage band you won't get enough salvage to craft all the IOs you want especially if you team. You may get enough total salvage numerically speaking but it won't be the right spread of what you actually need to craft the IOs you will use.

In the tier 2 band I found that (numerically speaking) roughly twice as many pieces of salvage drop than you will actually use. More if you solo less if you team. (Actively using patrol XP throws these ratios off by quite a bit).

If you solo heroic through these levels and complete mission goals rather than turn every thing into a defeat all you will find that about half the time you are fighting blues and greens. XP smoothing means that you will be at or near the level cap of many arcs when you receive them.

If you have done only the Magic and Natural content or you have focused on arcane dropping foes where ever you can, you can easily sell all surplus arcane salvage and turn around and buy which ever pieces of tech salvage you haven't gotten from the dual droppers, and still have quite a large surplus.

You will be short on rares but if you spend the last few bubs of level 29 running heroic MA missions you can get enough tickets to solve that problem.

So as far as salvage goes yes you can. Recipes are a different matter but, by listing your salvage at 10-15% over going rate, and letting it sell over weekends, you can get a nice large chuck of that out of the way early too.

[ QUOTE ]
And, I wasn't really implying that people were "lying" per se, just that they talk about making TONS of Inf, then turn around and tell people they don't need Inf.


[/ QUOTE ]

Once you have tons of inf you don't need it. Everyone starts with the same thing, 2 level 1 damage TOs, and 2 large inspirations. From there it's up to you to do as you want. Some peope play one toon and never alt. every resource that they earn goes into that one uber toon.

Alting or not is your choice. You shouldn't expect to have every IO you want on 5 alts unless you play 5 times as much as the guy that doesn't alt.

[ QUOTE ]

And basically claim that that people can have just as much fun without any "shinies" whatsoever.


[/ QUOTE ]

You can. We all did for nine issues it wasn't a sucky game and is only now fun because IOs are in it. It may be MORE fun with IOs but it isn't any less fun than before they were added.

[ QUOTE ]

Like, using all SO's or whatever - which I tend to call B.S. on for two reasons:

1. They DO have some "pimped out toons they can play if they want...

2. Saying that playing without "shinies" is just as much fun as playing with them - is oxymoronic.
IMO, that would be basically be like saying that "shinies" aren't "shiny".


[/ QUOTE ]

I have 2 toons that are SO'd out only and one toon that is a mix of SOs and Hamis. They are just as much fun now as they were when I was leveling them and I still play them.

Adding shinies to them might be MORE fun but the toons that are still SO'd still function extremely well for my play style and their build, and they don't need any thing extra to be fun.

[ QUOTE ]

Now... I'm not saying people can't enjoy the game without them, just that some people aren't 'practicing what they preach' (so to speak).

You don't fall into this category, you admit having toons you spent your Inf earnings on, AND that you have toons that you're frugal with - I understand that...

You're basically saying you have a your toons slotted in a variety of ways - which is all good (I do the same thing).

What ticks me off is the people that Do have toons with a bunch of shinys, (so they have the option of playing those toons)...
Who then proceed to tell other people they shouldn't be unhappy or disgruntled that they don't have the same option.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is what bugs me about posts like this. Yes I have several toons on different servers that are loaded to the gills with IOs. I use IO sets to get functionality that I wouldn't have with out them. I don't have full sets in all my powers on all my toons because sometimes some other mix is better for my concept and play style. I didn't start out with any uber IO'd toons. I have been working on my main since I9. I took the time to get my main set up exactly the way I want.

What bugs me is that people think that they shouldn't have to put in the same amount of effort that I did to get where I am. They do have exactly the same option as I do. Some of them have more since many of the IOs didn't exist when I started and key powers I had got nerfed and powers that I had no use for got buffed to make up for it.

[ QUOTE ]

And usually they immediately accuse these people of not 'lrning2mrkt', or that they want everything for nothing, handed to them on a platter, "I win" button, etc.

It's really easy to look down on the have-nots when your a have-got & (IMO) that happens all too often around here.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not the way it works. We don't look down on the have nots. We look down on the have nots that don't want to put forth the same amount of effort (no matter what part of the game that effort is applied to) that we did to become a have got and then turn around and claim that they will never be able to be a have got because they can't/won't put forth the effort we did to get there or that they can't get any leet loot because the marketeers have it all and won't let the "casual player" have any of it.

[ QUOTE ]
Milady's

All the lecturing and browbeating in the world doesn't change the fact that many don't like the market and don't think it meshes well with the rest of the game.


[/ QUOTE ]

What you call lecturing I call pointing out facts, separating conjecture, and specious rhetoric chopping. Which I am about to demonstrate once again.

[ QUOTE ]

That is no myth.


[/ QUOTE ]

What you are touting as fact is myth. What you are doing is extrapolating with out facts. You feel that you dislike the market, see a few other people that dislike it and extrapolate your tiny sample size into epic proportions.

Prove your "many". Or start even smaller than that. Define your idea of "many" before you set out to prove it.

[ QUOTE ]

The devs in recent issues seem to have seen fit to accomodate that. Instead of trying to argue these people into liking the market, its probably best to try and think of ways that the market can be made better for everyone.

[/ QUOTE ]

First off why? I don't believe there are many. I believe that there are few. I believe that there are far fewer marketphobes than there are marketphiles and that the majority of the player base falls somewhere in between.

It's not my job to try to make the folks that don't like the market like it, nor is it my job to fix what they perceive to be broken about it, especially since I don't agree that it is.

You yourself admit that the devs have give those that dislike the market the tools to avoid it.

Like it or not it all boils down to this:

Marketphobe, "I want an LotG +7.5."
Marketphile, "Ok, that's easy go to the market and take 5 minutes to do "X." Do "X" once a day for 4 weeks and put in a bid for what you want."

After that it breaks down into what Nethergoat refers to as whining.

Marketphobe thinks one of these:

A) I shouldn't have to use the market to get "X."
B) Using the market to get "X" takes too long."
C) I should be able to play the game "normally" to get "X"

Marketphile responds:

A) You don't have to. Run taskforces for merits or AE content for tickets and make random rolls.
B) You don't have to. Run taskforces for merits or AE content for tickets and make random rolls.
C) You can run story arc content for merits and make random rolls. By the way, if it was added to the game, and not an exploit, it IS "normal" content.

Marketphobe

A) I don't have time to run taskforces.
B) Merits and tickets take LONGER than using the market and random rolls don't get me exactly what I want each time.
C) Story arc content takes even LONGER than taskforces.

Marketphile

A) You can craft and sell while you are off line. It doesn't take any of your gaming time at all that way.
B) Then roll up an AoE toon and go kill stuff and sell the drops. Level 50 Fire/kins can make 5 million or more an hour.
C) Then solo flashback on arc "X" in Oro. It puts out merits at task force rates but you can do it in 20 minutes. Save up 250 and buy exactly what you want.

Marketphobe

A) I HATE THE MARKET I DON'T WANT TO USE IT AT ALL!!!
B) THAT'S FARMING I DON'T WANT TO FARM!!!
C) I CAN'T SOLO I DON'T LIKE IT, I CAN'T DO IT BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ANY IOS AND 250 MERITS FOR MY LotG IS WAY TOO EXPENSIVE!!!!!

This point at which the marketphobe gets called a whiner.

There are lots and lots of tools in the game now to let you get what ever you want with out using the market. Your problem is that the fastest way is the way you hate and you think it should be just as easy using any of the other tools.

If the devs agreed with this they would have made the other tools just as fast or faster out of the box. They would have left the Meow farms in the AE alone. They would have left the per mission ticket cap off of the AE missions. They haven't. This is not the market forum's fault nor is it the fault of the marketeers.

It's not our fault or problem that you don't want to use ANY of the tools that exist in the game or that you have some sort of excuse as to why you shouldn't have to use them when everyone else does. They are same tools that everyone else uses at the same speed that everyone else can use them. You just don't want to put forth the amount of effort it takes to use them to get what you want.

Wanting to get stuff faster than everyone else can IS having a sense of entitlement. Wanting stuff but not wanting to put the work in required to get it falls into the same category.

How many more tools do the devs have to put in and how much more development time will be required before you are happy?

Will you ever be happy with any of the tools they provide if it isn't a store where you can go and get exactly what you want after running one easy taskforce in 20 minutes? It's an MMO. Why do you think you should be able to interact with others on a team or a task force but then at the same time feel that you shouldn't have to interact with those same people in a market?

Marketphobe reasoning makes no sense to me.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
IO set bonuses allow me to cap ranged and AoE defense. I hover out of melee range and use provoke. The mobs gather under me and shoot at me and it bounces off.

<details>

It works pretty well unless you have an AoE Happy blaster on the team.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait...So your not actually using PFF though your using the IO set bonuses.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep. The only time I use PFF is when most of the team is dead, I'm def debuffed into oblivion, or when I need the resists that PFF provides (40% to all but toxic.)

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
shut up you! you're not allowed to talk about FF anymore

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm still allowed to talk about them, I'm just no longer allowed to act as if I am the omniscient force fields know-it-all. Now I'm just the FORUMS omniscient know-it-all!

[/ QUOTE ]

And being omniscient he all ready knew all this.

[ QUOTE ]
Look, you have to understand where the market haters are coming from. I myself am a reluctant marketer. Essentially I only use the market because it's the only realistic way for you to get complete IO sets (sure you can get them with Merits, but that would take a very long time given the IO recipe Merit costs). If there were another, I'd happily use it instead. Right now, there's not. Making rare salvage available with Tickets was a big step in the right direction.

So why do people dislike it? Is it because they simply lack the knowledge/insight required to use it to its potential? No, that is one of the least reasons.

1. Most people are here to be the superhero or the supervillain. They're not here to be capitalists (even though there's nothing wrong with being a capitalist). Having to deal with the market ends the fun and starts the work. Sure, you can ignore it. If you don't mind being stuck with SOs. Faced with having to stop punching face and start plugging numbers into a boring interface, many players end up feeling frustrated with the very paradigm of the market. Remember that scene in The Incredibles when the main character is working for the insurance company, hears someone who needs help outside, but can do nothing about it because he's stuck at work? That is how a lot of people view the market.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sure and Mr. Incredible is only one example. I'm sure Batman has investments and bankers and lawyers and board members to keep his mega bucks flowing. I'd give even odds that he's the comic book version of the ebil marketeer flipper while in his secret identity. Reed Richards of the Fantastic 4. "World's dumbest smart guy." He's the crafter. He invents and then sells his inventions for modest profits all to just keep his SG base going (the Baxter Building.) Even though I'm not big into RP I can easily justify market time as it being my Secret Identity. Most comic books don't spend much time on the secret identity and that too fits my play style. 5 minutes (usually less) at the start of my play session and 5 minutes at the end. My characters spend less time on end of session clean up than ever before the market. We used to have to go to the correct origin store to get maximum returns. Sometimes you had to travel all over the zone. Now it's one stop shopping.

[ QUOTE ]

2. A better system could have been implemented. Just look at how you can buy rare salvage with Tickets. That's how the whole system should work instead of a market. You're rewarded for playing the game instead of playing the market. In the current system, you're much more handsomely rewarded for playing the market. That's broken. A drop-trading system would have worked better, too (eg, any rare IO could be traded at a store for any other rare IO).


[/ QUOTE ]

Hind sight is 20/20. They could also have whipped a much worse system on us or made it a broken store as you suggest. No market means no cross server trades, no trades with folks from other countries that aren't on at the same time you are, no trades with folks that aren't in the same trade channel or zone you are in. In short the market and inventions go hand in hand. With out one, the other becomes either far too much work or completely pointless. As far as trading any rare for any other rare..... I'd trade a Lady Grey end/rech for a LotG +7.5 in a heart beat any day of the week. That idea won't work because all the rare IOs have different values established not by marketeers but by the devs and their assigned drop rates.

[ QUOTE ]

3. The market encourages distrust of other players. This is where that lack of knowledge comes in. Most players don't read the forums. They always suspect they're being taken advantage of when dealing with the market (and sometimes they're right). The game should never make people feel like this, it's bad for the community.


[/ QUOTE ]

???? I trust a nice clean interface. I only get taken advantage of if I go in without knowledge of what I'm doing and a good idea of the value of the things I'm shopping for. That's no different than any shopping in the real world. Buyer beware. Pay attention or suffer the consequences. If I'm making a major purchase I do the research or turn to a tool (a library or other center of learning) or a person (like I did when I bought my house. I found a realtor I was comfortable with.) In game is no different. This forum offers both information in the form of guides and players that have the knowledge and freely diseminate it.

[ QUOTE ]

4. The market brought spam. IOs are partially responsible, but I'm sure playing the market makes a great way to generate Inf for gold sellers to farm up and sell. The market was ready-made for gold sellers, really.


[/ QUOTE ]

Inventions brought spam not the market. Spam would be far worse if there was no market. The gold sellers would be offering transfer services as well, same as in other MMOs that have loot and no market.

[ QUOTE ]

I'm sure there are other reasons other people who question the market have too, but you can see here it isn't simple lack of knowledge that does it (though that can be a contributing factor, but only one among many).

Here's hoping you can buy specific recipes with Tickets and the Merit costs of specific recipes gets reduced from current, ridiculous levels. And here's hoping the market can be bypassed entirely with future modifications to the game along those lines. Until then I'll still use it...begrudgingly.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the end it does boil down to a lack of knowledge. If you haven't got the knowledge you haven't got the confidence and you'll never take the risks required to get the big scores.

While I hope they do reduce costs on the specific buy with merits items (or at the very least let us specify the exact level of the recipe on a random roll) I would not count on the devs creating a system that invalidates an almost entire issue of content (the market).

Lakanna said:

[ QUOTE ]

The devs are in a no-win situation that they created themselves. Allowing everyone a better chance at those recipes by increasing the drop rate significantly, will ultimately reduce the margins and adversely affect the enjoyment (and profits) of those that DO play the market and play it well. They can't make one group happy without making another group unhappy. I can't expect, though, that the devs will continue to make the marketeers happy while making the casual players feel like they have no choice but to do unfun, repetitive tasks to earn the rewards they want. (You know... "grind")

They can't leave the market as-is without making the game unfun for a large portion of the playerbase. They can't change it without upsetting the people who have come to enjoy the market minigame for its own sake.


[/ QUOTE ]

All the devs have to do to keep the marketeers happy is to continue to have a market. Real marketeers adapt to market changes. Real marketeers find the profit no matter where the cash flow goes and will be happy doing so. It's more varied, more of a challenge, and more fun. Each issue changes something about the market those changes are where the marketeers make the profit. By seeing a trend before the majority of the people are even aware that it's there. Marketeers welcome change.

The Ferengi rules of Aquisition sum it up:

Rule 34 War is good for business.
rule 35 Peace is good for business.

Which is to say that making the best profits rely on change in the status quo.

In addition to the Rules, Ferengi recognize five Stages of Acquisition:

1) Infatuation — "I want it."
2) Justification — "I must have it!"
3) Appropriation — "IT'S MINE AT LAST!"
4) Obsession — "Precious!"
5) Resale — "Make me an offer."

Real marketeers are the only ones that recognize and actively utilize stage 5. Everyone else stops at 4.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I still think that the Market has problems but then many of them stem from mechanics, not ebil marketeers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's not forget the wonderful interface and the Amiga running the thing...

[/ QUOTE ]

When did they upgrade from the C-64?

[ QUOTE ]
I understand that everyone can play the game they wan't to play it, but I just find it odd that so many people would pass up such a good buff. My scrapper's GC provides a 13% defense boost to my teammates. Back to that team from earlier today, if we all had GC on the entire team would've been soft-capped, even the squishies.


[/ QUOTE ]

I almost forgot to respond to this specific point.

Maximizing GC actually works against the team's best benefit. It may not seem like it but it is.

(Keep in mind that this is for SOs which is what the game and set is supposed to be balanced around.)

The only way to maximize the benefits of both PF and GC is to have 3 sheilders on the team. Those shielders need to stay in melee range of each other which gives you a triangular formation.

Every spot around your character that is occupied by an ally is a spot that 2 or even 3 mobs belong in.

Most defense debuffs are ranged. Every mob that can't get to melee, because the spot is taken by an ally, will stay at range and use a ranged attack. If that ranged attack is a defense debuff you expose yourself to greater risk by huddling together.

AAO Provides the shielder with both a per mob Self Damage buff and a mob damage debuff. These only work on mobs in melee range. While ranges say that this should work fine in actual practice it does not. If you are surrounded by mobs to saturate AAO you are virtually always out side the range of GC (you are always out of range of PF) and this is in ideal situations.

If there is a crate, wall or other object in the way (and there is almost always a crate, wall or other object to cause problems on most maps) a spot that should be taken by mobs or an ally is taken by an object that does nothing in the mitgation scheme.

When your 3 shielders are turtled up and are built with SOs and are relying on each other to soft cap defenses then you must stay within range at all times during combat or risk a self inflicted cascade failure. Also in this situation if one drops the other 2 will almost always immediately drop as well leaving only the squishies to handle what are now over aggroed mobs.

The only scrappers that I have seen that play in the way that gets maximum benefit from this style are newbs that Leroy into the middle of the room and fight clustered together and are getting this benefit mainly by accident.

Experienced scrappers that actively defend their team do so by turning around mezzers so that cone and TAoE mezzes and debuffs are targetted away from the squishies and their opportunity targets are usually the lieutenants that mez and debuff which frequently prefer range. To take out these targets the shielders have to leave the protective huddle which can initiate self inflicted cascade failure on their team mates.

The worst possible thing that I can think of as a non-melee focused squishy is having a newb shielder standing next to me with a taunt aura running thinking he's saving me by granting me 13% defense.

I would much rather have the AoE bait standing a good 20 feet away to make sure that I'm out of AoE splash radius.

In I13 closed beta we went around and around with Castle on this. He was pretty obstinante about making any defense increases in the set.

When Shields started in the Beta they were very very under mitigated. At the low levels due to the presence of machine guns the shielder played like a blapper with no ranged attacks what so ever.

It pretty much was. There was always a machine gun or 2 in a spawn, the debuff lasts long enough that it stacks, the debuff value is 7% and with DOs depending on your slotting you were running 10-15% defense at the most. It was always gone because 2 machine gun hits debuffed it into the floor.

One test I ran was jumping into a swarm of greens and blues in Perez. It was the only scrapper I ever had that actually got killed by doing this.

PF started out providing no defense if you had no allies near by but the ally cap was higher.

GC granted only the current level of defense no debuff resistance.

It became apparent late beta to Castle after receiving a barrage of complaints about squishiness that there actually was a problem with shields.

I'm sure he thumbed through most of our discussions on builds because GC was almost universally discarded by EVERYONE on test. Only a few people that were making scrapfenders actually utilized the power.

One test that many of us ran was a ship raid. We had Shield Brutes, Sheild scrappers, and Shield tankers all in a huge pile and I know that I was running GC to test it and so was at least 2 other players because I had 2 GC icons in my tray.

3 rikti magus hit their stalagmites one right after another and there was the biggest pile of dead "non-squishies" I had ever seen in my life. The only player on my team that survived it was PunchNJudy's Dark/Regen.

It became pretty apparent that Shields was undermitigated but instead of adding defense anywhere Castle increased the resistances in the set.

He put the extra defense debuff resistance that the set needed in GC because "there should not be any powers that are easily skippable"

End result... GC is still skippable because he put the carrot in the wrong place. Scrappers deal damage, the scrapper can't do that if the scrapper is dead, most scrappers are still going to make sure they survive first so they can stay in and do damage.

As far as taking a team buff that's the last thing most scrappers do. There's no point taking a team buff if you can't survive to keep it on the team.

I'm still of the same opinion I was during closed beta. Shields are undermitigated with out IOs and become a powerhouse with them but only for a very expensive build.

From my testing I still believe what I believed in closed Beta. The extra defense debuff resistance that was put into GC to make it "unskippable" belongs in True Grit and GC needs 3% defense that affects the user and is enhanceable.

3% more defense for the Scrapper would make this a power that was not only taken by every sheilder but slotted up as well. Instead of a power that gets taken at level 49, the base slot gets an LotG +7.5 stuck in it, and it only gets turned on if the scrapper is specifically playing a scrapfender or needs the extra debuff resistances.

I have an FF defender that uses this trick.... sort of.

IO set bonuses allow me to cap ranged and AoE defense. I hover out of melee range and use provoke. The mobs gather under me and shoot at me and it bounces off.

I toggle Force Bubble on and then off as soon as the mobs bounce. Then I toss in an AOE, then I provoke, then I toss in repulsion bomb, then another AoE and start the cycle again.

It works pretty well unless you have an AoE Happy blaster on the team.

Hmmm perhaps I could write a guide that leaves out flipping.

I could call it the "A Morally Superior guide to profitting at an Altruistic Wentworths."

Anyone think that would fly?

I wouldn't do a red side guide since the red side folks are SUPPOSED to be evil and take advantage where they can.

Myth: Stuff on the market is too expensive.
Fact: Then sell while the prices are high instead of buy. You can buy next week after you made a ton of money this week by selling. Until then, stick an SO or a Common in that slot. Your build has been working fine the way it is. You can wait a week for the shiney.

The mobs are notified when you make the to hit roll which is immediately after you begin the animation.

If the mobs are a type that hit hard quickly you may be dead before you finish the animation and drain any thing.

Even on slow acting mobs they queue an attack as soon as they are notified and that attack will still resolve when their animation completes since the almost non-existant end cost is paid at the beginning of the attack. This means you will suffer the results of the alpha even if the mob is subsequently mezzed or drained. The only way to avoid the alpha is to defeat the mob before the animation completes which will prevent the damage from being applied.

In the case of DoTs like bullets from a hellion gunner if he is undefeated when the first tick is applied all the ticks will be applied even if he drops several seconds before the last tick fires. All mobs and mob DoTs work this way.

Bubbles are crap we need a real healer on the team.

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm... Thanks for all the info. I had never thought to try using it as a recovery power (though the numbers say its not a good idea). Resist seems blah...

Sounds like a passer, save for the +3% Def IO. But, if I went into fighting, isn't that what tough is for?

[/ QUOTE ]

I found I had endurance problems if I wanted to do both high damage AND survive using the fighting pool.

I soft capped my defensess, dropped fighting, picked up aid self, and pretty much solved both problems.