ValBlademaster

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Check out this thread.

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That thread is for DB, this one is for DM :P

I have a Claws/SR scrapper at 41, and he's been pretty fun.

I vote /SR.

You'll find as a Katana player (only any lethal type damage AT) that there are going to be quite a few AVs that you can't take down simply because of their resistances. I can't remember if Dominatrix is past these two AVs or not, but when you come across Siege and Nightstar, don't bother attempting them solo, because they also have 50% lethal resistance.

Anyhow, grats on Infernal! He was the very first AV I took down on my Katana/Regen, and I've come quite a ways since then. Our secondaries are different so you might have an easier time on some AVs than I did, and visa versa, but so far I've found Neuron (ranged attacks with -end) and Black Scorpion (quite a few big, big hits in his arsenal) to be my toughest, but still do-able, fights.

Good luck!

Sigh. I didn't know this before level pacting. I've been level pacted with a friend of mine who has been really lazy lately, and I've leveled from 1 to 45 on my VEAT on my own without his help. So what you're saying is, I've pretty much been leveling like I've had permanent debt since level 1.

Well... thanks for the quick replies.

I'm a little confused as to how the xp sharing works, since the wording that I've found for the Level Pact description is not quite specific enough. So, I've got a couple questions.

1. Is the xp split in half and then given to each player, or does a player earn normal xp and also give that same amount to their pact? IE, if I kill a mob worth 10xp, do I get 5 and my partner gets 5, or do we both get 10?

2. When teamed, how does the xp distribution work? Example: my pactmate and I are teamed. We kill a mob, and in the chat window it says "You have earned 10 xp to go towards your level pact." Do we get a straight 10xp for that mob, or does my partner get 10xp plus the 10xp that I got, and visa versa, adding up to 20xp per person?

Thanks for your time.

It's a nice buff, but I don't know if I'd cross the line to balance issue. Wishlist, definitely.

Out of curiosity, did you send the letter yet?

Most every secondary is viable and will fit just fine with Fire. It really depends on what you are looking for. If you want good AOE damage and nice survivability (with some cash dished out), Fire/Shields is quite nice. Fire/Fire might not have as much survivability, but it trades that for mega damage. Regen is nice, but it is a very interactive/"clicky" secondary, and some people don't like that. Super Reflexes is a secondary that is easy to softcap for defense, and much like Willpower, is pretty much toggle and forget.

Hope that helps.

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It doesn't need Slow Resistance because it has Instant Healing.

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Care to explain this? It makes no sense at all.

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It makes sense if you understand the design of the Regen set.

Instant Healing is your protection in Long fights. That's Exactly what you need when Slows are pulling down the recharge of your Short fight powers (Recon and MoG).

You don't need Slow resistance because you have a Click power that makes you almost unkillable for 90 seconds at a time.

Also, strategic use of MoG can overcome almost anything.

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Slows are a different mechanic than -recharge abilities, so I believe that's where the confusion is coming from.

Ok, perhaps not a cascade by definition. But getting hit constantly by various -rech attacks, in my experience, has shut down my cooldowns entirely for extended periods. Low defense means constantly getting hit, and constantly getting hit keeps those click abilities sitting there as tiny dots.

During such periods, unless IH is active, the amount of regeneration one has cannot nearly make up for the amount of incoming damage.

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That's just blatantly wrong. Because IH is a click, it's affected by -recharge. It's got a longer duration, so the -recharge isn't going to have an immediate effect upon survivability, but, as soon as you use any of the click powers, you're going to have severely diminished survivability because the power is going to be coming back in a longer period of time.

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Not to mention that fact that, since Regen has no inherent defense, most -rech attacks that are being thrown against you are going to land over and over again, effectively locking out your biggest means of survivability.

Cascade recharge failure, perhaps?

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Thats what Werner does, he walks into a thread and hits spineburst.

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If Werner is a Spines Scrapper in his forum personae, I must be the Dark Melee Scrapper. Either that or no one pays any attention to me even though I've pretty much been the one making most of the viable points that generally get obfuscated by the general rancor of forum posts.

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Not true. Imo, your posts on the first page pretty much should have wrapped things up.

But, as with all things, people have different opinions, and with these being forums, they must be debated.

I'm going to agree with the "just because it is a buff doesn't mean you should automatically support it" idea here. I wouldn't want God mode, and that's why I'm playing a regen.

But in this case, all arguments considered, I still don't find this change to be unreasonable, overpowered, or anything at all that tips the balance. Sure, the set might not NEED it, and good players get around it, yada yada, but other sets have gotten buffs they didn't NEED either, that were still positive improvements that made a set more solid.

I'm not going to scream at the devs and take a "REGEN NEEDS BUFFS NOW!" attitude, but this is something I'd sign for as being a positive change that they can implement when appropriate.

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But I don't see how Santorican's earned the ire and the mocking arrogance that I've seen proliferated in this thread.

What is this? The Defender forum?

EDIT - sorry, Val - this isn't necessarily directed at you... you just made the Achilles' Heal point that I wanted to address.

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It's fine, I didn't take that as being directed towards me, being as though I support his suggestion.

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Yes it is. And many people have answered, "Regen does NOT need some debuff resistance." Sure, it would be NICE, it is WANTED, but it is NOT NEEDED.

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Defense debuffs were the Achilles heel of the SR set. They were given resistance to said debuffs out of balance concerns.

Recharge debuffs are the Achilles heel of the regen set. Why should they not be given similar treatment? One could use the same arguments against giving the SR set defense debuff resistance that you use. "Learn how to deal with it", or "pop a purple". But they gave them that change because it made it a better, more balanced set overall.

Again, why can regen not be given similar treament?

I find myself feeling the same way. I know I can come here to ask questions and not feel like I am getting looked down upon. I also like how much I trust that I am getting good advice. When I ask for the best build for something, I know I am getting the BEST.

I wish I could say the same about some other forums. I am looking for a good Huntsman build for Soldiers of Arachnos and I get so many conflicting things, most of which looks crazy.

I'm not sure what the big debate is here, or why people are so against this. As has been stated many times, -rech kills a set that depends on click powers.

The biggest problem is that there are so many factors going into this hole that regen has. Since a */regen doesn't have any built in defense in the first place, you're going to be hit often by all the things that cause -rech (or -def or -regen, etc). Once you're hit by -rech and all of your heals are little dots, you are screwed unless you get really lucky. You are left with no heals, and paltry defense/resilience comparatively. The odds stack against you exponentially.

Something like a */SR is rarely going to get hit by the things that can possibly cause their weaknesses to show, and when they do, they have resistance against it anyway.

Hit a */Inv scrapper with -def, and they still have their +res to help them stay alive. Hit a */WP with -regen, and they still have +def and +res to stay alive.

Hit a */regen scrapper with -rech, and they are left with almost nothing but +regen that is paltry compared to the amount of damage they have incoming. And again, keep in mind that a */regen scrapper is going to be usually 15%+ away from softcap defense, meaning they are going to be hit by the things that expose their weakness a lot easier, a lot sooner, and a lot more often.

I just gave this thread a

Having fought Ice Mistral recently, I can fully endorse this letter.

Also, well said Umbral.

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Crabs have the greatest AoE potential, but at the expense of both defense and ST potential. Easily remedied by duo-ing with another crab. Crabs that softcap themselves tend to give up too much in some other area, loosing most of their advantage over the the huntsman. On the upside, that type of build is likely less expensive in infamy.

Huntsman (hybrid Bane/Wolf) have the next highest AoE Potential, and can just barely softcap, or just barely not softcap, or add in even more AoE at the expense of defense. However, crabs have the stronger AoE skew.

Personally, I prefer the huntsman with near-softcapped defenses, Aid Self, while maintaining pylon soloing ST damage, the second best AoE damage, and stronger force multiplication thru both buffs and debuffs. I give up a little defense, but I keep the second best of of all worlds.

If the crab legs were less fugly, and I knew I would always have a crab partner, then given a duo of crabs mitigates the defensive weakness as well as the ST weakness I would then always duo with crabs for the greater AoE destruction.

Bane (Bane Melee with minimal Wolf Attacks) are next, but both forts and widows can be built to equal the same level of AoE. Forts and NWs are not normally built that way, but can be.

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Mind sharing your Huntsman build? I'm going Huntsman at 50 and using Crab to level for now. But what you have sounds like what I want.

Congrats! Ghost Widow, Silver Mantis, and Scirroco are all big pains for my Kat/Regen. I can't do them unless I use inspirations, unfortunately.

DM/SD seems to be all the craze! Glad you're having a good time of it.

Some uber-number-crunchers can correct me if I am wrong here, but as /Regen your main focuses should be recharge and defense, as opposed to recharge and regeneration. The set already has a good amount of regeneration built into it, and you are relying more on your click abilities for healing than built-in regen.

You can take your fourth slots out of Health and Integration, and maybe your third slot out of Fast Healing, and put those slots elsewhere. I might recommend a couple slots in Tough to get your 5-set bonus from Aegis. I might also recommend putting a 5th Doctored Wounds enhancement in Reconstruction (instead of the Harmonized) and changing your Soaring Dragon to be slotted with Mako's Bite instead. You'll get some extra defense from that while keeping capped with 5 +5% global recharge.

I might also suggest taking out a slot from both your Quick Recovery and Stamina powers and placing those in your Super Speed, and then slotting Super Speed with 3 Blessing of the Zephyr for some nice defense. When you do that, replace one of the regular invention: endurance mod enhancers with a Performance Shifter: Chance for +End in both Quick Recov. and Stamina.

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

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

Nobody: Level 50 Natural Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Katana
Secondary Power Set: Regeneration
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Gambler's Cut <ul type="square">[*] (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage[*] (3) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance[*] (3) Crushing Impact - Damage/Recharge[*] (5) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance[*] (5) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge[*] (7) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff[/list]Level 1: Fast Healing <ul type="square">[*] (A) Numina's Convalescence - Heal[*] (7) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Recharge[/list]Level 2: Flashing Steel <ul type="square">[*] (A) Obliteration - Damage[*] (9) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge[*] (9) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge[*] (11) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge[*] (11) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (13) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage[/list]Level 4: Reconstruction <ul type="square">[*] (A) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Endurance[*] (13) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Recharge[*] (15) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Endurance/Recharge[*] (15) Doctored Wounds - Heal[*] (17) Doctored Wounds - Recharge[/list]Level 6: Quick Recovery <ul type="square">[*] (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End[*] (17) Performance Shifter - EndMod[/list]Level 8: Divine Avalanche <ul type="square">[*] (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage[*] (19) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance[*] (19) Crushing Impact - Damage/Recharge[*] (21) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge[*] (21) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance[*] (50) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed[/list]Level 10: Dull Pain <ul type="square">[*] (A) Numina's Convalescence - Heal[*] (23) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Recharge[*] (23) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Endurance/Recharge[*] (25) Doctored Wounds - Recharge[*] (25) Harmonized Healing - Heal/Endurance/Recharge[/list]Level 12: Hasten <ul type="square">[*] (A) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (27) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (27) Recharge Reduction IO[/list]Level 14: Super Speed <ul type="square">[*] (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range[*] (29) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance[*] (29) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)[/list]Level 16: Integration <ul type="square">[*] (A) Numina's Convalescence - Heal[*] (31) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Endurance[/list]Level 18: The Lotus Drops <ul type="square">[*] (A) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage[*] (31) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Endurance[*] (31) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Recharge[*] (33) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance[*] (33) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Recharge[*] (33) Scirocco's Dervish - Chance of Damage(Lethal)[/list]Level 20: Build Up <ul type="square">[*] (A) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (34) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (34) Recharge Reduction IO[/list]Level 22: Hurdle <ul type="square">[*] (A) Jumping IO[/list]Level 24: Health <ul type="square">[*] (A) Numina's Convalescence - +Regeneration/+Recovery[*] (34) Regenerative Tissue - +Regeneration[/list]Level 26: Soaring Dragon <ul type="square">[*] (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage[*] (36) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance[*] (36) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge[*] (36) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge[*] (37) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (37) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)[/list]Level 28: Instant Healing <ul type="square">[*] (A) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (37) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (39) Recharge Reduction IO[/list]Level 30: Stamina <ul type="square">[*] (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End[*] (39) Performance Shifter - EndMod[/list]Level 32: Golden Dragonfly <ul type="square">[*] (A) Obliteration - Damage[*] (39) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge[*] (40) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge[*] (40) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge[*] (40) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (42) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage[/list]Level 35: Boxing <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy IO[/list]Level 38: Moment of Glory <ul type="square">[*] (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Recharge[*] (42) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed[*] (42) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (50) Recharge Reduction IO[/list]Level 41: Focused Accuracy <ul type="square">[*] (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff[*] (43) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge[*] (43) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance[*] (43) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance[*] (45) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance[*] (45) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up[/list]Level 44: Tough <ul type="square">[*] (A) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance[*] (45) Aegis - Resistance/Recharge[*] (46) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge[*] (46) Aegis - Resistance[*] (46) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance[/list]Level 47: Weave <ul type="square">[*] (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance[*] (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance/Recharge[*] (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense[*] (48) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed[/list]Level 49: Resilience <ul type="square">[*] (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%[*] (50) Resist Damage IO[/list]------------
Level 1: Brawl <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 1: Sprint <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 2: Rest <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 1: Critical Hit


I threw this together kind of quick, so it might not be optimized and whatnot, but it at least lets you see what I'm talking about.

I'm sure Umbral or Werner can pop in and help with more tweaks, but I hope that helps.

I like your humor and style. Good write-ups, nice fights. Enjoy the many more AVs left in the game after that arc, and remember to get as much advice from the monks as you can before engaging.

I was thinking about taking a break from my VEAT to run this on my scrapper.

What do you guys think of the TF overall? So far I have only heard very "meh" things about it.

Yeah, same here. The green really gets in the way of some of my costumes. It looks awkward having orange hasten and green auras from regen plus whatever other color auras for my costumes.

But... I'm not holding high hope for them allowing customization of those kinds of things. Blasts and imps and whatnot, sure, but Invuln and Regen type toggles? I'm not so sure.