OneWhoBinds

Y'know, I was all set to roll up my DM/Regen scrapper... when I did a quick poll of characters I've already got.

3 Dark Melee (Scrapper, Tanker, Brute)

0 Fiery Melee

Sooo... at the last minute, I rolled up a Fiery Melee/Regeneration scrapper, instead.

Which leads into my current questions:

Scorch - is it worth taking on a Scrapper?

And a question for Regeneration:

Building up some additional mitigation looks like a good idea... so Tough seems like a good choice. The question is... would Weave be useful? While it's universal defense, it's also only, fully enhanced, 5.88 points of it. Is that worth the power pick and slots, when I've got nothing to stack that with?

Thanks!

Okay, looking at Dark... a couple questions come to mind.

First...With all the healing inherent in Regen, is slotting Siphon Life for the heal worth it?

Second... does Dark Consumption have any real place when the secondary has Quick Recovery? Especially if I stack Stamina on top of it?

Yeah... looking it over, I think I'll be going with Dark. Now I just need to work out a couple of costume details...

My Altaholism knows no bounds, it seems.

I've got a character concept that I'm rather excited about... BUT - I can't really lock down on the powers to use.

For the concept, only /Regen really works as a secondary (Will Power just doesn't quite synch.) But, I could use either Dark Melee or Fiery Melee for the Primary.

So... seeing as the current list of guides is rather limited... how do Dark Melee and Fiery Melee mesh with Regeneration?

Well, I finally got around to starting my Mind/Electric Assault Dominator. However, as I can find no real guide for /Electric Assault, I was wondering if anyone could give me pointers regarding the set, and how it meshes with Mind Control.

Thank you.

I do not possess the time to read the entire thread, so if this has been proposed before - and shot down already - then I am sorry.

Has anyone considered adding a small chance (5% or less) for say, and 8-10 second Mag2 Fear, to the effects of Gauntlet? A sort of intimidation factor added into the attacks, to occasionally leave the weaker enemies quaking and unable to attack.

I think it would remain thematic, but still have a rare, but visible effect in solo situations.

Just a thought I had.

Look, I've said this before, but...

We can only guess what the effects of GR will be until it actually hits. And even if it does result in a knife in the back of the Defender AT in general... it will take (at a minimum) months of datamining before the Devs will notice, and start working on a 'Fix.'

Waving the "DOOOOOOM!" flag isn't going to accomplish anything beyond allowing you to say "I told you so!" IF it falls as you fear.

Wait... I thought the Devs took out the Medic's brawl attack two issues ago... when did they get it back?

I'm actually okay with most of the pets having a brawl attack. The one that makes no sense to me is Prot Bots... the DON'T have a Brawl, or any sort of melee attack, yet insist on getting into melee range.

Of course, now that I've gotten Upgrade, I can sort of understand it as a way to get the Prot Bot's Seeker Drones to latch onto something... but I still think it's a rather suicidal way for the AI to work.

Mind Control is a set that matures relatively early, and then stagnates a in the late game. When other sets are taking off because of access to their pets, Mind Control is left with... yet another way to prevent incoming damage from a large group of enemies - in a set that already has a plethora of such options available to it.

In my experience, Mind Control is a dominating force, pre 32. After that, it fades into almost complete obscurity. And it has always been this way - Plant Control didn't do this. It's just the nature of the set, I fear.

Ironically, Gravity and Mind Controls seem to be at opposite ends of a spectrum. In the low levels, a Gravity Controller has to leverage his/her Secondary well to be at all effective in teams. Meanwhile, a Mind Controller has to learn to really rely on their secondary as they move into the late game...

I don't suppose I could see a link to a guide how to do this? Because I am still running shy on slots needed to Soft Cap my defenses all the way until 50...

Okay, here's a question for all the build masters out there...

I'm playing a DM/Shiled Scrapper. And I would like to soft cap his defense.

BUT - here are the limitations:

As I find I don't play my level 50 characters much, I don't want to hit the soft cap at level 50, I want to hit it BEFORE level 50.

As you can guess from that, I don't want to even consider Purple sets.

So! Is it possible to hit the soft cap on a DM/Shields, using only Uncommon or Rare IO Sets, by the mid 40s at the latest?

If so, how?

Awesome! Here's to hoping it makes it to release!

...

Now, any chance that the Conserve Power in Energy Aura could get swapped out with something simillar?

As a Defender, you have to consider your primary when you consider your Nuke.

Force Fields, Radiation Emissions, and Sonic Resonance should probably just ignore the Nuke. Dark Miasma and Storm Summoning may as well, depending on how much you use their toggles by the late 30s. Dropping your toggles will cripple you if you aren't absolutely certain the enemies are dead.

Kinetics and Cold Domination, on the other hand, possess no toggles to drop, and have End Recovery powers, making Nukes a very viable choice for these players.

The other Primaries - Empathy and Trick Arrow, Traps in i16 - are rather neutral toward nukes... there it's the player's choice.

And, of course, all of this can be disregarded in the case of Archery... and for Assault Rifle in i16. They don't have crashing nukes, so their t9 power should never be ignored.

There was a recent proposal, in another thread (I think) to have Vig. be a scaling Endurance Discount or Endurance Recovery boost.

i.e. the lower the blue bar gets, either the less End it takes to use their powers, OR the more End they recover with each tick.

Functionally, quite similar to what the Defender already has, while being viable in all situations a Defender would find themself in.

I'm not sure if that would really improve the Defender's lot in life, but I don't think it would overpower the AT...

...unless making Stamina truely optional would be considered overpowered?

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Piston Boots animate for any kind of jumping. Rocket Boots activate for any kind of flying. Winged Boots activate for any kind of movement. (Winged Boots are conceptually for running, but there's no real difference between running and other kinds of movement)

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What do piston boots do when they animate? I have a character wearing them who uses CJ as his travel power and I've never noticed them do anything, even when using the jump pack. I always thought it was weird that all the other boots do something and the piston boots didn't.

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Piston Boots add 'rings' to your trail as you jump. They can be very hard to see, though.

Pay close attention, or maybe up your graphics for a bit, and you should see the rings.

Defenders will likely get /Fire Blast when they get /Thermal Radiation.

However, the Devs are already giving Thermal Radiation to the Masterminds. I guess they decided they didn't want to cop out and give another AT the same proliferation. Scrappers and Tankers both getting Electric Melee and Electric Armor was bad enough...

If they replace Time Bomb with something even remotly useful... I sure as heck am gonna sign a petition to get it changed on Corruptors, too...

You might want to take a 'wait-and-see' approach with Gravity... at least see if the current Wormhole issue is proven groundless, or if there is an actual bug.

Right now, it seems that the teleport effect of wormhole can hit, but the stun still miss. Which reduces the effectiveness of Wormhole dramatically...

I generally notice the sudden drop in enemy HP more than an actual number. There's a whole bunch of little ticks, then their HP gets one huge chuck bitten out at the end.

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I view all personal attacks as a general waste of time. Maybe for pulling, but I have temp and veteran powers for that. Traps is pretty much the only MM secondary that could really edge someone into taking a personal attack, as Caltrops and Triage Beacon seem rather unpromising at first glance.

I use my drones to pull when I feel the need. Usually I just dive right in and remember to use them as the sparks fly...

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Personal attacks are NOT a waste of time... early in your career. I don't remember the thread, but this came up a couple months back - and someone had all kinds of scary numbers to back him up!

But what it ammounted to was that - with even one personal attack - the Mastermind will actually be able to produce a significant amount of their over all damage. It's only around the time you can pick up the Tier 3 pet, and certainly after the 32 upgrade, that your personal attacks become completely meaningless. After that, the only reason to have one at all... is to be able to pull out your weapon. This makes it worth using a Respec on your character.

With Traps, this is especially true. Caltrops are good, but not great, and Triage Beacon really needs SOs to be worth anything. Take an attack early, and respec out of it sometime after level 22.

While Unstoppable is not a 'must have,' if you can work it in, it can be a nice addition.

That said, I freely admit that I don't enocunter too many situations where I need it... but when I do, it's a wonderful thing.

My personal best remembered use of Unstoppable was in a large, open room in a tech map... the one ring walkway. My team were fighting Nemesis soldiers, and I was the only non-squishy there... and every enemy spawn (and there were a lot of them!) had a Sniper in it.

After tying a few things that... ended poorly, I just hit Unstoppable and started taking out the Snipers - managed to clear them all out before the crash, and the team was able to eliminate the leftovers while I rested up.

Still, that's been one of three times total I've ever used Unstoppable, so it isn't really needed.

Now... I've personally not seen why Tough and Weave would be a good invenstment. I don't think the resist & defense the give are woth the added endurance cost... not on an Invul, at least. But that may just be me.

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I suggest you try all def TF's and come back on how mediocre they really are.

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...

This leads to part 2 of my Defender woes. One that, I freely admit, has nothing to do with the AT, and everything to do with ME.

(ahem)

I can't get a freakin' Pick Up Group together! How in the bloody blue blazes do you expect me to get an all Defender team going?!

Seriously, this is the reason why solo performance is so important to me - between limited play time (1-2 hours/night at most, for the most part) and my inability to form teams on my own... my chances of being in a team is vanishingly small.

I do expect Going Rogue to hurt Defender number some - new players will likely be more drawn to the Corruptor's damage than to getting the buffs/debuffs earlier with the Defender.

No... the question is: Will it be enough of a drop to draw the Devs attention and time to the AT?