Werner

Consider Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals -> Power Slice. You don't need a cone for an AV, Power Slice has better DPS and DPE than One Thousand Cuts, and it's shorter, so takes less time away from even better attacks.

You could do better DPS by picking up a lot of recharge to run Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals, but I wouldn't. Willpower just doesn't benefit from recharge, and you need to focus all of your attention on defense.

There are higher DPS chains still, but they require extreme recharge, and you're just not going to want to go there with Willpower.

Well, I'd have to do a bunch of endurance usage calculations to really know. I know I basically tried to come up with what an average single-target IO'd out chain uses in endurance (pretty hopeless, I know). I think the average was around 3 EPS across the twenty or so builds I looked at. So if we assume that's the case here, then your Tough build is going to burn endurance at maybe 0.6 EPS. That's probably just fine for most purposes, though it'll cause you some trouble if you want to solo AVs without temps or inspirations.

However, it should be easy to grab the accolades. That'll cut your endurance burn in about half, which should be good enough for just about anything.

However, this all probably comes with an error of +/- 1 EPS, which basically says I'm not giving you any useful information and I should just shut up.

Anyway, without taking a lot more trouble to check endurance usage, I'll give the nod to the Tough build, but not by much.

Your lower recharge one for similar DPS is Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Shadow Punch -> Siphon Life -> Smite -> Shadow Punch. For a lowbie chain, perhaps replace Midnight Grasp with Shadow Maul. 63% recharge in Smite, 21% in Siphon Life, 13% in Shadow Maul, nothing in Shadow Punch.

Yeah, Dark Regeneration is kind of the cornerstone of Dark Armor in my opinion. Everything else is just there to slow down the incoming damage so that you have time to fire off Dark Regeneration and heal back to full, over and over. Definitely add the Theft of Essence proc as mentioned to offset the endurance cost.

I've gotten the not ready sound intermittently on a chain that should be tight. Not sure what's going on, particularly since it's intermittent. You'd think if it was insufficient recharge, I'd always have insufficient recharge. I don't think it's recharge debuffs, and certainly isn't in the case of pylons. I guess I'll fall back on the fact that we don't know precisely when recharge starts and by when it must be completed. Most signs point to our current understanding (must recharge in the Arcanatime of the other attacks) being correct, but there are occasional signs that it isn't correct, such as the not ready sound when it shouldn't be there, or stacking that isn't as good as it should be. Maybe our understanding is very close, but not exactly right. Wouldn't surprise me at all. So as a general rule, I try to have more recharge than I think I need. Good idea for recharge debuffs anyway. But the build I'm currently working on will only have 0.02 seconds more recharge than I think I need on one of the powers. I'll be curious if I get an intermittent not ready sound.

Having AoE at 40% means getting hit twice as often with AoE as if you had 45%. When you're that close, go all the way. That comes before worrying about your regeneration.

I didn't go so far as to skip Build Up on my Katana/Dark, but it does only have one slot. Build Up is a great damage buff. But you have to balance it against everything else you want out of a build.

Well, according to City of Data. Stealth suppresses for 10 seconds when attacked, hit by foe, or clicking on glowie. That includes the stealth radius, not just the defense. On the other hand, it also says that all but 35 feet of the stealth radius of Cloak of Darkness suppresses too, and that last 35 feet suppresses when clicking on a glowie. That doesn't quite match my understanding, but I could certainly be wrong.

Only skimmed the thread. Playing now, and I haven't updated Werner's defense-first build since I12, so I'm slowly drifting out of touch with the state of the art. Umbral made a recharge/defense build for ValBlademaster that kicked my old build's buttocks. So I'll leave you in his capable hands.

Bill, as I just sent you in a PM, you're getting more of a buff from the chance of build up, and more of a debuff from the Achilles' Heel and the Gladiator procs than you're computing.

CFBU: .05 * chances in 5.25 seconds
CFDRD: 1 + (1-.8^(chances in 10.3 sec))*.2 + (1-.8^(chances in 10.3 sec))*.2

However, I wasn't aware that the build up proc triggered a 10 second downtime, so that will make things more complicated. All the builds I've used it on had it in a toggle, so they'd be unaffected. Anyway, perhaps those differences would account for your extra 8 DPS. Or it could just be luck.

In regards to the Follow Up -> Eviscerate -> Focus, chain, Umbral is correct that it was only the highest because of a mistake that I made. The current spreadsheet has it slightly lower than Follow Up -> Focus -> Slash -> Pause. However, it's only lower by 1 DPS, and the higher DPS chain is on a build with +300% recharge in Follow Up. The Eviscerate chain gets by with only +274% recharge, so that's what I'd personally be aiming for if I had an extreme recharge build.

Bill, you're miscalculating 10 second suppression thing. Let's say you have the ultimate buzzsaw, an million attacks all taking a millionth of a second, all with the proc. You would have as close to 100% chance of triggering the proc immediately as makes no difference. So you'd immediately get the 100% buff for 5.25 seconds, then you'd be suppressed for another 4.75 seconds. In other words, you'd get an average buff of 52.5%. THAT'S your limit, not 2.625%.

That's not the same thing as giving you the actual calculation, but it looks like Umbral gave the outline of it. I'm personally going to go play now. I have an accolade to grab on Alexei, maybe a respec. Maybe math later, or tomorrow.

My two mains have the stealth IO in the veteran/beta sprint. So I can still sprint at full speed if for some reason I want to sprint, or swap over to the veteran/beta sprint when I want to be stealthy. And since it lasts for two minutes, you don't need to leave it on. You can just click it twice for two minutes of stealth. Anyway, if I didn't have the veteran/beta sprints, I'd put it in Sprint directly.

On a Blaster of mine, I do have it in Combat Jumping. Combined with Cloaking Device, I have true full time invisibility. At least until I attack.

I'm pretty sure that Stealth, the stealth IOs, and Super Running all suppress in combat.

That's one of the many great things about Dark Armor. True invisibility, and it doesn't suppress. Not only can you walk right up to the spawn, but if you attack, there's a good chance that half the spawn won't even notice.

I assume his on paper number included a 5% chance of misses.

My combat "strategy" is to jump into the middle of the spawn, kill target, tab, follow, kill, tab, follow, kill, and so on. No real strategy, rarely even select my target beyond the first one. If you're actually using strategy, you're ahead of how I normally play.

So I'm thinking you have build issues. As far as some basics, you should have Divine Avalanche slotted as an attack, and be using it once every ten seconds (or ASAP again if you miss). That will get your melee defense over the magic 45% number, and you'll take only 1/3 the damage from melee attacks that you do at 35%. That's huge. I actually monitor melee defense to make sure I'm always over 45%. You should have all the passive defense powers, as they provide your scaling damage resistance and much of your defense debuff resistance. You should have both Tough and Weave, and Tough should be slotted up (one endred, three resist) and used. I would highly suggest buying a Steadfast Protection +3% defense unique to put in Tough (could replace one of the resists). The difference between 35% defense and 38% defense is that the 35% defense build will take 25% more damage.

Consider a Gaussian set somewhere. If you don't have Tactics, you can plop it in Build Up. It'll eat into your DPS a little in Build Up, but it's worth it for the extra 2.5% defense. The difference between 38% defense and 40.5% defense is that the 38% defense build will take 26% more damage.

I'd probably be chaining Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut. That requires a recharge of 5.94 seconds in Golden Dragonfly, which it sounds like you're set for. Then you need Gambler's Cut recharging in 1.58 seconds, Soaring Dragon in 6.34 seconds, and Divine Avalanche in 6.34 seconds. That should be doable with Quickness and frankenslotting.

Oh, and until you hit 45% defense, purples are your inspiration of choice, not greens. Heck, even if you make no build changes, or are already doing everything I suggest, popping a purple to take you from 35% defense to the soft cap will massively reduce the incoming damage. Ideally, you size up the fight and take the purple before jumping in. But if you find yourself getting creamed, make sure you hit a purple as well as a green.

Now for the sticker shock. The +3% defense, +3% resist and Panacea uniques will set you back about 4.5 billion total. They're worth it IMHO, but that's a whole lot of grinding. Heck, it's even a whole lot of marketeering.

To hit and accuracy are very different, and 20% to hit is a pretty big buff.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics

Regeneration is a very active secondary with multiple clicks that you will use routinely. You have to pay attention, you have to predict what's coming your way, you have to make split second decisions in order to stay alive. And it's a school of hard knocks. All that said, I think it's the most rewarding secondary when you get everything right. On the down side, you pretty much have to get everything right in order to get the survivability of other secondaries.

Yes, the base damage is significantly higher than Brutes to make up for the lack of fury. You also get critical hits.

I do not recommend Phase Shift. If you aren't smashing in faces, you aren't a Scrapper.

I do not recommend skipping Stamina. You COULD, particularly with Claws, which uses less endurance than normal. But I recommend running a whole lot of toggles, and you're going to need a lot of endurance recovery to pull it all off. Think of limitless endurance as a perk of the set. That said, don't take Stamina at 20. You probably won't "need" it until the 30s or 40s.

Below is my standard boilerplate for Regen. This was written a while ago. I'm even more convinced of the value of recharge at this point, so I very strongly recommend Speed over Leadership, rather than merely recommending it. As far as set IOs go, just make sure you cover the enhancement levels indicated by the SO slotting, then you're shooting for recharge, recharge, MORE recharge, and finally defense.

“There are definitely other approaches, but here's what I'd consider a basic plan for the Regeneration secondary using SOs or common IOs:

- Fast Healing at 1, 3 heals
- Reconstruction nice and early, 3 heals, 3 recharges
- Quick Recovery nice and early, 1 endurance modifier at first, add 1 or 2 more as necessary
- Dull Pain when or shortly after when available, as there is a lot to squeeze in at that level, 3 heals, 3 recharges
- Integration at 16, 3 heals, possibly 1 endurance reducer
- Resilience when and if you can work it in, 1 resist
- Instant Healing when or shortly after when available, 1-3 recharges, no heals unless you're swimming in slots
- Skip Revive
- Moment of Glory when or shortly after when available, 1-3 recharges
- Hasten when convenient, 3 recharges
- Health when convenient, 3 heals
- Tough when convenient, 3 resists, 1 endurance reducer
- Stamina if and when you start having endurance trouble, which may not be until 30 or later, 1 endurance modifier at first, add 1 or 2 more as necessary

If it were me, I'd also try to get some basic defense, but it will use up even more power and pool choices. Combat Jumping or Hover, but don't worry about slotting for defense. Weave with 3 defense. Maneuvers with 3 defense. The Steadfast Protection unique in Resilience or Tough. With even-level SOs, that will give you 14.3% defense to all. Not great, but not bad.

The astute observer will notice that I've now recommended 5 power pools – Leaping or Flight, Fitness, Fighting, Leadership and Speed. You can't have everything, so you'll need to make some choices. I dropped Speed, using IO set bonuses and my primary (Katana) to drastically improve my defense. Most people should probably drop Leadership instead. You'll probably find Hasten more useful than Maneuvers.”

I'm guessing you'd get creamed.

A resistance-based scrapper at the resistance cap is taking 2.5 times as much damage as a defense-based scrapper at the defense cap, plus the defense cap is easier to reach in most cases.

Now, you CAN use pool powers and sets to get quite a lot of defense. I'm sure there's some build that can pull it off. But if my goal was soloing AVs, I just wouldn't choose Fire or Electricity unless I was I was specifically trying to prove that it could be done. There are just much better options.

As a side note, the to hit debuff is very heavily resisted by AVs, so that won't be much of a factor.

Now in the rest of the game, when survivability isn't an issue, it would be OK I guess. It'll do pretty good single target damage. You have a damage aura, which is always nice. You'll never have endurance trouble. I hear the endurance drain helps your survivability, though you'll still be pretty vulnerable to the alpha strike.

Maybe I'm off base. I haven't actually put together any Electricty builds. But Dark Melee/Electic Armor sounds kind of meh to me on the surface.

Bah. Last night, I thought about posting simply, "Do whatever Umbral says when he sees this thread and posts." I should have done that. He's more an expert on this subject than I am, but let me take a look over his mini-guide and give it my stamp of approval. Yep, those are the right attack strings. Yep, Touch of Death is probably the go to set because of the melee defense. I did put Shadow Maul on the chopping block for my AV soloer, but it KILLED me because I LOVE Shadow Maul. I'd definitely fit it in if you can. Some people love Touch of Fear, but I'd rather be doing damage. I agree with slotting Siphon Life purely as an attack since you have "damage recovery coming out of your nose". I agree that Dark Consumption isn't an attack; it's just an endurance recovery power that happens to do a little damage. I'm a fan of six-slotting Performance Shifter in Quick Recovery if you can afford the slots. Otherwise, the four or two plus one slotting that Umbral mentions seems ideal. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, blah, blah, blah... yes, do what Umbral says.

Frankly, I think it is TRIVIAL to resolve a merged market from a role play stand point - ROLE PLAY THAT THEY AREN'T MERGED. There are NO names or faction information associated with any of the goods available. You will NEVER meet these people. Role play that all of the goods are from blue side if you're blue side, or red side if you're red side. If you can suspend disbelief enough to role play in the first place, this one should be EASY. How is this troubling people? How do people see this as killing immersion and role play? Seriously???

As for not merging the markets because the devs want parity FIRST... *facepalm*

As for this kiling red side, one minor reason I prefer blue side is that I prefer the availability of goods on the blue side market. I am at least slightly more likely to play red side if the markets are merged. As the goat says, "I'm not getting the logic behind 'a big merged market with more of everything would turn off villain players, while a small, undersupplied market rife with profiteering wouldn't.'"