Umbral

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Slappers just don't understand the power of the buffs.

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We do. We just prefer to do without them because we want to see what we can do without them.

Plus, while 8 defenders working together is quite amazing, you'd be even more amazed what 7 defenders and a single Scrapper can manage.

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my expertise is kind of divided between the really cheap and the really expensive, because I level up really cheap, and then sometimes spec into something really expensive. So the in-between stuff is probably best left to others.

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Yet more similarities between Werner and myself arise.

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how much resistance a target with 0% resist to all has after 3x Enervating Field is put on it. (Actually, I'm not 100% sure about that one, either. )

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Assuming they're all defender EFs, -90% resist.

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1: How survivable is WP?

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If you know anything about Arcanaville's secondary effectiveness spreadsheet or even care, */WP get's substantially higher than average values for virtually all conditions and oftentimes best or second best survivability. It's one of the top contenders, especially when you've got IOs backing it up.

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2: Does it need heavy IO slotting to really shine, or can it do well out of the box?

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Like every Scrapper secondary, IOs just make it more devastating, but, unlike others that you may think of (SR and Shield), even without IOs, it's still one of the top secondaries.

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4: Is one capable of doing well even without 16 people cramming around you to fuel RttC?

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It's a bit weaker than Regen with only a single target for RttC fuel, but it's still better than average. Remember that RttC will give Integration level +regen with only a single target, so it's not insubstantial even at its lowest.

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6: Is it possible to cap defense? If so, would it be typed or positional defense?

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I've seen both though much can depend on your primary and how much of your attack string you're willing to sacrifice for it.

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7: How much Regen can I can, both in and out of RttC?

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With single target RttC, you will have as much regen as you had on your */Regen without Instant Healing on. With saturated RttC, you'll have regen nearly twice as high.

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Sorry about my loads of questions, I just really don't want to suck.
I'd feel stupid if I rerolled a character from a badass to something...less badass.

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Depending on what you do with that */regen and how fast you are with your reflexes, and how interested you are in keeping that fast paced style of play, you may find that */WP outperforms your */Regen rather much, especially with IOs. */Regen gets a remarkably small amount of added survivability and functionality from IOs. */WP gets a significant amount.

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Cool, thanks ValB. And Umbral, if you catch this.

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Ahh... the sweet caress of being recognized. If you have any questions about the logic behind the build, feel free to ask, via PM or in-game.

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Umbral: Give it to Werner to play with.

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I would never do so. The fact that it's horrible to deal with makes it all the more intriguing!

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That and I've never played with defiance calculations, and don't even have a corrupter. Almost all of my number crunching is specific to scrappers. I have other toons, some of them at 50, but they never interested me enough to pull out a calculator.

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Yeah. I've crunched numbers for Blasters, Tankers, and Defenders. I lets me get away from Scrapper calculations, which are getting a bit too easy, which is why I was started the other thread.

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Well stealth adds about the same defense as weave does, but you lose all the resistance from tough.

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Half of Stealth's +def is suppressed when attacked or attacking. As soon as the stealth drops, the defense is only as good as Combat Jumpings and costs .33 end/sec rather than .07.

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Umbral: Give it to Werner to play with.

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I would never do so. The fact that it's horrible to deal with makes it all the more intriguing!

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If someone wants to take the time to figure out the best attack chain I'd love you for it, if not I totally understand.

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How much recharge are you thinking about getting? Give me some decent recharge goals and I'll put one together for you. While Sonic Blast is an utter biyatch to calculate for, doing it for a Corr is easier than doing it for a Blaster (Defiance is teh debil!).

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Well, first off, if you want to use anything while you're fighting, you're going to be restricted to using Stealth, which adds about as much survivability as Combat Jumping for just short of 5 times the cost. Compared with Tough and Weave, you're not getting nearly as much and it's costing about the same.

Personally, I don't really see Phase Shift as being particularly valuable. It would allow you to get 30 seconds of untouchability every 120 seconds, but you're not going to be able to deal damage in that time. It might be useful to get a heal or 2 off or to get through the valleys of */Regen's performance, but I doubt it would do more than simply increasing your overall performance with Tough and Weave.

In short, it will give you a bit of additional useful survivability, but not nearly as much as Tough and Weave could.

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I thought you only had to wait 30s before you can use it again.
When did they raise it and why?

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Phase Shift has a 30 second duration and a 180 second recharge. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that there is a global cooldown on all powers that render oneself Intangible that prevent you from going Intangible again for a period after it, which is why the power is listed in Mids as having a duration of 120 secs.

I've never claimed to be an expert on Phase Shift and all of the weirdness that's gone with it. I've never found it to be particularly useful and all of the chaos that has surrounded how it works for so long hasn't instilled much confidence concerning it in me.

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If you can, work in more Scream and less Shriek. One of the things that you have to remember about Sonic Blast is that a large portion of its damage is delayed in the form of -res. Because Scream is a DoT, all of its damage except for the first tick benefits from its own -res. Shriek has the shortest duration (and thusly lowest delayed damage) along with worse DPA thanks to not benefiting from its own -res.

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Umbral: On the other hand, if you used Shriek, wouldn't it be easier to keep a higher level of -res on the target than if you used Shout? I haven't done any significant number crunching to support that, but I remember reading a thread about a Storm/Sonic Defender who used Shriek, Scream, and Screech to maximize res debuffs. (Of course, those res debuffs were amplifying all of Storm's powers, not just the Defender's attack chain.)

Hrmm...

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I know that, for a Blaster, Shout is better than Shriek by a substantial margin, but that's mostly because Shout has an ungodly huge Defiance buff (17.6%) to go with the extended duration -res. Scream>Shout>Scream>Shriek>Shout>Sh riek was the best I could come up with, as it optimizes -res in both of the Screams, but, yes, Shout is a rather bad power. The big problem is that Shriek and Scream are the only especially effective single target attacks in the set and it's impossible to get a seamless attack string consisting of just the two. Shout has the ungodly animation time that kills the DPA. Screech has an excellent debuff but utterly atrocious DPA. Howl and Shockwave are AoEs and behave as such. Your best bet is to simply try to use Scream as often as possible, Shriek next, and Shout only when you have to.

Well, first off, if you want to use anything while you're fighting, you're going to be restricted to using Stealth, which adds about as much survivability as Combat Jumping for just short of 5 times the cost. Compared with Tough and Weave, you're not getting nearly as much and it's costing about the same.

Personally, I don't really see Phase Shift as being particularly valuable. It would allow you to get 30 seconds of untouchability every 120 seconds, but you're not going to be able to deal damage in that time. It might be useful to get a heal or 2 off or to get through the valleys of */Regen's performance, but I doubt it would do more than simply increasing your overall performance with Tough and Weave.

In short, it will give you a bit of additional useful survivability, but not nearly as much as Tough and Weave could.

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Took Ice Slash from Icey Assault to add in (getting rid of the atrocity known as Frozen Aura) and moved Greater Ice Sword to the tier 9 position. Also added Ice Sword Circle from Icey Assault.

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You're not a fan of the frozen Footstomp? Personally, I've found it to be one of the more valuable powers within the set.

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I've never had an Ice Melee character high enough to have it. I was under the impression that it was a fairly low damage AoE sleep power, which I couldn't see being very useful to a scrapper.

I will stand corrected if that is not the case, but if it IS the case I would expect it to be the single most skipped power in the set if ported to scrappers.

I wanted to tweak it for damage output, as a low damage controllery set would kind of be at odds with a scrapper's general purpose, but I also wanted to leave some of the control powers in there because scrappers really don't have anything like that.
Frozen Aura was the power I picked to axe.

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It used to be like that but now it's pretty much a clone of Footstomp with the AoE balance formula appropriate radius, a respectably long sleep rather than knockdown, and pure cold damage. An excellent power, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Anyone else amused that his origin is "Mercenary Super-powered Soldier" rather than Technology?

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Took Ice Slash from Icey Assault to add in (getting rid of the atrocity known as Frozen Aura) and moved Greater Ice Sword to the tier 9 position. Also added Ice Sword Circle from Icey Assault.

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You're not a fan of the frozen Footstomp? Personally, I've found it to be one of the more valuable powers within the set.

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I think many of these same knowledgeable folks have experience with many AT. It isn't that the other boards don't have their gurus, I'm sure they do, it's just that many of ours are...cross-trained?

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I routinely hit up the other AT forums and have always been glad to come back to the Scrapper forums. Of course, on those forums, I've gained some number crunching clout, but I've never liked any AT as much as I love Scrappers.

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Attack chain is Shout>Shriek>Scream>Shriek.

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If you can, work in more Scream and less Shriek. One of the things that you have to remember about Sonic Blast is that a large portion of its damage is delayed in the form of -res. Because Scream is a DoT, all of its damage except for the first tick benefits from its own -res. Shriek has the shortest duration (and thusly lowest delayed damage) along with worse DPA thanks to not benefiting from its own -res.

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I thought Electric Blast also returned endurance to the caster sometimes?

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The single target attacks do. Charged Bolts has a 30% chance to give you back 2.6 end, Lightning Bolt has a 30% chance to give you back 4.27 end, Zapp has a 30% chance to give you back 7.2 end, and Tesla Cage has a 30% chance to give you back 3.43 end.

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Yeah, I've never been sure of how -tohit translates to bumping up defense. I know it's not a 1:1 ratio, but I still have a bit of -tohit overkill you're right.

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Actually, it is a 1:1 ratio. The issue is that enemies resist tohit debuffs according to their level thanks to the Purple Patch. This means that, while you may be hitting that 53 target with your level 50 character's 20% tohit debuff, they'll only be affected by a 13% tohit debuff. Because of how the Attack Mechanics work, that 13% tohit you're managing to get through to the target is does exactly the same thing to your team's chance to get hit as giving them all 13% more defense.

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Well.... just so happens that I have a 50 DM/Regen and would strongly consider IOing out if I see a nice build to base him off of.

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And lo, Umbral came down from on high (the Cimeroran Wall is pretty high up there, right?) and saw that his fellows needed guidance, so he grabbed his build and gave it to 'em.

Chock full of damage (MG>Smite>Siphon>Smite plus decent AoE in Shadow Maul, DC, and SD), defense (33.5% melee defense anyone?), and boatloads of recharge (cuz everyone wants to be able to use Reconstruction more than 3 times a minute, right?).

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

+def concept: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Regeneration
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Concealment
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Smite -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(3), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), T'Death-Dam%(46)
Level 1: Fast Healing -- RgnTis-Regen+(A)
Level 2: Shadow Maul -- Armgdn-Dmg(A), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(7), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(9), Armgdn-Dam%(11)
Level 4: Reconstruction -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(11), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Dct'dW-Heal(13), Dct'dW-Rchg(15)
Level 6: Quick Recovery -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(7), EndMod-I(48)
Level 8: Siphon Life -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(17), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(19), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), T'Death-Dam%(21)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(34), Zephyr-Travel(46), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(46)
Level 12: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal(25), Dct'dW-Rchg(25)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-ResKB(15), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(27)
Level 16: Integration -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(17), Numna-Heal(27)
Level 18: Dark Consumption -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(31), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Oblit-%Dam(34)
Level 20: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 22: Tough -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(37), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Aegis-ResDam(37), Aegis-Psi/Status(39)
Level 24: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(39)
Level 26: Soul Drain -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(39), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(40), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Oblit-%Dam(42)
Level 28: Instant Healing -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal(31), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(42)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(A), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(36), Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(36), Hectmb-Dam%(45)
Level 35: Stealth -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 38: Moment of Glory -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(42), RechRdx-I(43), RechRdx-I(48)
Level 41: Focused Accuracy -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(43), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(43), GSFC-Build%(45), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(50), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(50)
Level 44: Super Speed -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(45), Zephyr-ResKB(48)
Level 47: Invisibility -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 49: Resilience -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), Empty(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit

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I'm told the Devs have described the Defender as the best balanced AT. I'm forced to wonder at this. Consider the following.

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First off, you're right insofar as the devs, at one point, having said that they believe that Defenders are the most balanced of the ATs. Keep in mind that this was when the game was run by Jack Emmert and Cryptic Studios and it was said in reference to why Defenders got such a wholly craptastic inherent power.

Secondly, comparing Defender performance while solo to Scrapper performance while solo, especially when you're using a Defender powerset that is designed to be a teaming powerset, will never be a legitimate argument. All the devs guarantee for soloing is that it is possible. It's not "can solo at least this well". It's "can solo, on heroic, if played with a modicum of intelligence". You've tried to use this same flawed argument in multiple places and been told the same thing by many of the same people every time: you're comparison is flawed, you can't play a defender solo the same way you play a defender teamed, and your build is atrocious.

Stacking FF with Dark always seemed to me to be more than a bit of overkill. Dispersion + Shields + Maneuvers with Defender numbers is more than enough to take everyone in the group to the softcap. The tohit debuff is only largely useful at low levels before you gotten all of your stuff together.

Either way, if you want ot use Dark Blast most effectively, don't concentrate on the tohit debuff aspect. Concentrate on the other aspects, like the self heal, AoE controls, and AoEs. Clouded Senses is fine if you want to have an attack that you save for times when the enemies have tohit buffs or defense debuffs, but, otherwise is power is pretty much going to be a set mule and you don't want to do that to all of your attack powers.

Also, why did you skip Dark Pit? That thing is awesome.

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Thanks for telling me this late you need to backtrack and find out the average defiance for the string before adding defiance btw...

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No, you don't need to find the average Defiance. You need to find the full Defiance value that each attack gets from all of the attacks before it individually. You have to figure out which attacks before it in the attack string (remembering that the attack string is actually a cycle so the attacks at the end are "before" the initial attacks) give it defiance and how much, if any, of the Defiance buffs stack, because if you cycle them fast enough, they will.

Here's an example using the IO level AR attack string:
Burst>Slug>Burst>Buckshot

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Attack	Animation	Burst Def	Slug Def	Burst Def	Slug Def	Total Def

Burst	1.188		6.6		11		6.6		10.2		34.4

Slug	1.848		13.2		11		6.6		10.2		41

Burst	1.188		6.6		22		6.6		5.1		40.3

Buck	1.848		6.6		22		13.2		5.1		46.9

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Because the attack string is so short (re: 6.072 secs), all of the attacks actually stack on themselves several times throughout the attack string (which makes sense considering that the Defiance buff lasts 7.5 secs after the attack). The individual attack within the attack string will generate overlap on the individual Defiance buff. The total +dam that you should be factoring in to the attack when you calculate the final values for the attack string should be enhancement value plus the total Defiance for the individual attack.

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besides werner and iggyi have never seen a regen solo avs without insps and temps. it will be nice to have another regen av soloer around

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Yo. I been soloing AVs without temps and insps since I1 dawg and I still do it with some regularity. Last week actually, a painfully poorly built Claws/Regen requested my help killing Ghost Widow. He died in the first couple of seconds and I then proceeded to solo her face off (learning to time MoG for when she's about to do Soul Storm was most profitable). While I wasn't technically solo, the other scrapper just sat there dead and watched me for the entire fight, so I feel comfortable counting it as a solo.

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I didnt umbral, each attack i did this:

base dam*(1.9493+defiance)

next attack: dam *(1.9493+def+def from last attack)

and so on...

did you not look at how i did it from the chart? All i was saying is the +dma you get from that string, like YOU did in your post "correcting" me

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Did you calculate for a single instance of the attack string or did you calculate for the full cycle? Remember that Defiance won't cut off just because you started your attack chain over. The first power in the attack string should have the Defiance +dam from the powers at the end of the attack string factored in. Once you get through 7 seconds of your attack chain, you're going to be stacking a rather significant benefit. This is the primary reason why it takes so much more time for me to calculate Blaster DPS as opposed to any other AT: calculating the full contribution of Defiance is a horrible biyatch to do.

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dude, the chain you gave me was blaze-snap-aim-snap for teh SO+ hasten... there was no Fistfull

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I posted that you got the numbers specifically wrong for SOs without Hasten because that's the first that I checked.

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..did you change the strings you posted without telling us or something?

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No, I didn't and the only attack strings that I did change, I mentioned rather specifically in my post for their DPS (the protocol I use only values DPA, which makes delayed damage mechanics like Defiance and Sonic's -res a bit difficult to quantify accurately).