Umbral

On the top left of your power tab there should be a space that says "Combat Attributes". Click it. This will bring up a window with all of your numbers available under the various nested tables. You can then right click any specific attribute and select an option that will bring up a window to track said value without the big window up.

I realize this. I actually specifically mentioned that the power is rather poor for DPA and thereby DPS. This is less a point of it not having enough damage and more a point of the animation taking too long. Animation has a lot more to do with how useful an attack is than outright damage 99% of the time, especially from the current balance perspective wherein animation time is completely ignored.

As it stands, to bring Total Focus up to the same level of DPA as Energy Punch, it would need to get its damage scalar increased to 6.125 (354.25 damage unenhanced). That would increase the endurance cost to roughly 33 end and the recharge to roughly 35 seconds.

If you really want to try to get it made into a better attack, you're better off asking for the animation time to be reduced to roughly 2 seconds. That'll keep all of the recharge and endurance costs the same while making the attack actually competitive against other melee powers.

Power Burst really is the ugly stepchild of the tier 3 blast world. It's got abysmal DPA, especially when you consider that the tier 3 blast is supposed to be substantially more powerful than the tier 1 and 2 blasts (re: at least 50% better DPA is pretty much standard). It's DPA is a pitiful 59.1. The tier 1 and 2 blasts have DPAs of 52.7 and 55.5, respectively. Virtually every other tier 3 blast (all of them if you include Shout's longer -res component) have DPAs that are at least 90 (the DPAs of the tier 1 and 2 blasts are all pretty much the same with a couple exceptions).

The best solution as I see it is to increase the damage to roughly 200 (~50% increase in base damge). It would give it a DPA that's actually competitive with the rest of the tier 3 blasts. The secondary effect doesn't really need to be addressed, as I see it, simply because its already got a more reliable and higher mag knockback effect than any of the other blasts: the secondary effect is already where it needs to be.

I think there are 2 reasons that it didn't get the "increase the base damage" treatment (which also increases recharge and endurance thanks to the damage formula): it's already got a recharge on it that makes it incapable of being put into an attack string easily and it's already a really strong power (based on single source of damage rather than DPS). Increasing the damage/recharge/end of the other punches made them less integral to Blaster attack strings than they were before. The intent, as I recall, was to make the primary the foundation of Blaster attack strings rather than the melee attacks of certain secondaries.

On a less on-topic note, did anyone else expect some horrible roleplay inspired "logic" blurb that insisted that because the character is channeling universal forces in coherent blasts that the character should be dealing more damage than the guy flinging fire?

Both of those numbers are correct.

The reason you need to calculate using Arcanatime rather than the in game numbers is pretty simple: the in-game numbers are wrong. Well, not exactly wrong, they just don't account for all of the time that is taken up by a power being activated.

The logic behind it is rather simple: the server only checks your status once every so often. If you change your status in between these regular intervals, your status remains the same until the server checks it again. This is why the numbers are all divisible by .132 seconds.

Now, the reason why your not just going to divide by .132 and then round up is equally simple: finishing the activation of a power and activating a new one have to operate on different intervals. One clock interval is taken up finishing the activation forcing the earliest time that a power can be activated to actually be a clock interval after the power is finished activating.

Storm Kick only takes .83 seconds to animated as we see it. The server won't actually realize that the animation is completed until .924 seconds are up, and it won't allow you to animate another attack until 1.056 seconds are up. Because it doesn't really matter how long the animation is where DPS is concerned, it actually matters how long it takes until you can get another attack started, the amount of time that the attack takes up is 1.056 seconds. Using the listed number would artificially inflate your DPS because it assumes that you're attacking as soon as you see the animation finish rather than operating under the constraints forced upon you by the server.

Cold/Sonic, Dark/Sonic, Rad/Sonic, TA/Sonic, Storm/Sonic

*/Sonic is just awesomely potent and by far the best blast from a sheer damage and functional contribution standpoint. Cold/*, Dark/*, Rad/*, TA/* and Storm/* are all excellent solo'ers.

Actually, I'd challenge you to actually bring up any statistical evidence to demonstrate correlation and then ask you to actually tell me how strong the correlation is. And then I'd tell you that it's actually perceived power level and that most of the people that play the game are incredibly bad at accurate observation where game balance is concerned.

The devs have, in general, assumed that population disparity demonstrates imbalance, but there are also other variables aside from balance that impact population. Assumed and actual playstyle both have a huge impact on how popular an AT is. This is why Stalkers, even though they've been balanced upwards pretty heavily, are still less popular. You can't view population as the single arbiter of balance simply because there will always be population disparities. On average, support based roles/ATs/classes are significantly less popular than pure damage ones simply because people prefer to deal damage rather than keep people alive, no matter how much that support might be stronger.

Also, something to remember, a single data point across the various servers does not a rigorous assessment make. Check it across multiple times across multiple days and you'll get something that might actually be significant.

I was referring to the secondary attacks not being able to crit.

I've helped a couple of Blasters, more than a few Night Widows (and even a ranged only Fortunata), several Tankers, a couple of Brutes, and a number of Stalkers all of which either posted here looking for help or sent me a PM specifically because they read the Scrapper forums.

I think it's fair to say that the Scrapper forums are known across all of the AT boards as the place to go when attack strings are important and AV soloing isn't simply due to stacking loads of debuffs on the target.

Well, for starters, Chain Induction and Lightning Rod both work better for Brutes than they do for Scrappers (or Stalkers) simply because those powers can't crit. I honestly hope that something can be done to fix that.

It's less a question of whether we'll get a completely different version (in much the same way that Tankers, Scrappers, and Brutes all have different versions of Fire Melee) and more a question of what the attributes of the powers within the sets as they apply specifically to the Scrapper AT will be.

Quiet you... crazy early morning posting ftl.

Like all of the non-flying Scrappers don't already hate fighting the Jade Spider and yellow Mitos... Having to jump up to take a swipe at his waist rather than his ankles would be so much fun.

If you're using Thunder Kick rather than Storm Kick for purely cosmetic reasons, you're definitely not getting everything out of it you could be. They've got the exact same animation time and Storm Kick deals and extra 29 base damage.

Thunder>Dark>Crane>Thunder>Dark>CAK with that slotting is 1096.5 damage in 8.184 seconds (Thunder takes 1.056 secs to animate, Dark Blast takes 1.188, Crane and CAK take 1.848, all thanks to Arcanatime) for 134 DPS assuming 100% accuracy. Storm>Dark>Crane>Storm>Dark>CAK with that very same slotting would deal 1202.4 damage in the exact same period of time for 146.9 DPS.

You probably forgot to account for Arcanatime when you were figuring out animation times for your powers (a common mistake to newbie number crunchers). To get the real time that each of the powers takes up, divide the listed animation time by .132, round it up, add 1, and then multiply by .132.

.132*(roundUp(listed/.132)+1) = Arcanatime (real) animation time

Which is going to disproportionately favor the MA/Nin because one of the reasons that DM/Shield is so devastating is because it's packing so much +dam. I also doubt that it's going to be that tight. Of course, I don't really deal with budget builds, so I doubt I'd really be fully qualified to tell you what, but my gut says that the DM/Shield is gonna kick it hard no matter what your budget is.

It doesn't actually use less end normally. It just does better damage for the exact same recharge and animation time making it the better attack to use. The reason that it uses less end is because I specifically slotted it as such so that the endurance drain would be sustainable.

Mids naturally accounts for the base 10% crit chance of all Stalker powers. Filling the team would increase the damage (excluding damage procs) by 19.1%. If you want to get a gauge for how much damage you'd be doing with a full team, simply take the numbers that Mids gives you, remove the damage contributed by damage procs, multiply it by 1.191 and then add the damage proc contributions right back on to it. That should give you an accurate calculation.

Considering you're asking a bunch of Scrappers, we probably don't really know. There's probably some precedent for it on the Stalker forums, though if there isn't, I doubt they'd really want to listen to what the Scrappers say. Personally, I think that would be kinda cheaty because you're getting buffs from your teammates, plus it's a bit unwieldy to have to get people together so you can solo an AV. Doesn't really make much sense.

I agree with this notion. The resists should be valued equal with defense values rather than twice as heavy (re: 1% res should be equivalent to 1% def in set bonuses whereas now they're 1% res is equivalent to 2% def).

They also need to address the fact that, while defense bonuses are rather prolific (which is one of the reasons why slotting for defense is more popular than slotting for resist), resistance bonuses are rather rare and, at the same time, affect fewer values. There are a number of single and paired resistances that should be paired, similar to how positionals and typed based defenses are paired together. All of the single resist bonuses should be pair with their compatriot type (s/l, f/c, n/e, p/t) and all of the paired resists bonuses should have either 1 or 2 other bonuses at half the value, whether it progress circularly (s/l paired with f/c which is paired with n/e which is paired with p/t which is paired with s/l) or has specifically chosen pairs (s/l with p/t and f/c with n/e).

These changes might actually make getting resistance worth it somewhat. The fact that it's only half as effective as the defense (because that's how defense and resistance operate on average) should be enough of a reason to balance it out. As it stands now, there's no point in getting the resists whatsoever even if you've already got some resists to stack them up with because the values are so pitiful.

You're wrong unless you're refering to the additional +tohit that enemies 6 levels or higher than you get (which is a bit more than "higher conned"). The only time that having defense above the softcap contributes is either when you're hit by a defense debuff (so that it acts as a buffer to keep you at or above the softcap) or when the entity attacking you has tohit buffs (which directly counteract defense on a scale of 1:1). The only time that level difference directly plays into this is when you're fighting a target that is of sufficiently high level that it gets automatic +tohit against you. Sufficiently high level is +6 or higher, at which point the entity gets an extra 5% +tohit against you for each level above the 5th that it's already above you. Combined with the fact that they're already packing a natural accuracy of 1.5*rankAcc, that little bit of def above isn't really going to do much.

Your conclusions are correct. The issue that many people bring up with using those debuffs on targets with high levels of resistance is that you're already dealing so little damage, you'd have better use spending it elsewhere. When the target has 99% resistance and you're throwing 100% -res at him, you simply making your 100 damage attacks do 2 damage instead of 1. Neither of those numbers is impressive so it's better to focus your efforts elsewhere until the peaked resist drops.

How many toggles are you running? If you're running a lot of them (like your three native toggles, the Fighting pool, and Focused Accuracy/Targeting Drone), then yes, you probably do need it. If you're running a very high recharge attack string (which will probably be pushing 3.5 end/sec burn on top of your ~1 end/sec from toggles), then yes. If you're simply leveling up and not planning on running a vast plethora of toggles, then no. The lower end costs of the Claws/* attacks and Quick Recovery should be more than enough.

As stated earlier, it should be an option that you can opt out of (and should be opted out on default). Remember, it's the search function, not just the team finding function.

Level range should be specifiable as you choose. Use the Consignment House UI as a model. IT allows you to specifically pick the lower and upper bound of anyone you're searching for. There are many times I play in which a 5 level range would be too large and others where I'd like to search 20 some odd levels.

Truncation should be an option in which the list is paginated rather than completely ignoring any overflow.

I'd also love to get some kind of queue function set up for team formation. Join the teaming queue for a zone/level range or the queue for a specific task force that way you're easier to find and you don't have to keep checking back every five minutes.

Are you sure you don't want to use Storm Kick rather than Thunder Kick? They're both available at level one and Storm Kick is significantly better DPA.

Assuming you go with Storm>Dark>Crane>Storm>Dark>CAK, you'll deal roughly 73.8 base DPS (re: no +dam, no procs). I assure you that MA/Nin will not outperform DM/Shield.

Actually, you're reading that entire analysis a bit incorrectly since you're citing popularity as "number of logins for each AT" rather than the more appropriate but completely unavailable "number of hours player for each AT".

Honestly, if you want a good gauge of real AT popularity insofar as playtime rather than timed logged in, you'd do best to simply take a few samples across all of the servers. Simply make a level 1 character, head in and check how many of each AT are playing at any specific time. In general, you'll find significantly more controllers on than any other AT. This is actually a more effective way to gauge AT interest because it actually accounts for how much people are actually willing to play the AT (or at least stand around while playing the character).