New efforts!

[Luna Eclypse]

Someone once thought that Scrappers were meant for tanking because he had a Scrapper that was used as a damage dealing tank. Versatile, yes. Not what the scrapper is meant to do though  ;D ;D

I enjoyed pushing the limits of my Scrappers in tanking situations even though they really couldn't tank. I tended to actually take my Provoke powers to help with certain situations like keeping multiple AVs separated such as Romulus and his Nictis. I could survive alright on my own for a bit but as long as the support was buffing me well, I could Provoke "scrank" each of the Nictis away from Rommy til the cows came home.

Tanking is jumping in first and attacking everything until everything either faceplants or you do.  That's how I played my scrapper :)  Actually that's how I played my controller too (although I considered Mass Confusion and Fulcrum shift a standard attack opening :D ...and he could stop the bad guys from hurting the good guys...just like a Tank!)

I remember during a Double XP weekend, this one fellow invited me and my friend to his team explicitly because I was a Storm Def and my buddy was a Grav troller. This guy was a Spines/DA Scrapper and totally spec'd to be a "Scranker." He needed us for our debuffs and holds... and it was glorious. Any time an actual tank joined the team, they just got to relax. We teamed for several hours and the guy ended up friending us and inviting us along with him for weeks. It was very cool.

And even on my own, I used Hurricane several times for soft tanking if only for a few moments for others to situate themselves or whatever. Worked great in cramped corridors, it would just pin all the mobs to the walls with it's constantly stacking accuracy debuff... then cast Freezing Rain to ruin their defenses. Party mops them up. Otherwise, if everything goes south real quick, I just let loose every Storm power to cause chaos and grab the aggro if my teammates needed to space themselves from the mobs or run. I didn't mind taking the fall.

[Sugoi]

But nowhere in this long discussion did we consider the alternative... everybody get's their characters back, but nobody who previously played can create NEW characters!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!   NO ... MORE ... ALTS!!!   :gonk:

And it doesn't even help if you create new accounts... THEY KNOW (it's some kind of NSA thing I believe) :P

Well, that'll keep me busy for a few more years... and then I'll have a close relative create a new account, and carelessly leave the login info out in the open for anyone who happens to be visiting to see.  (Close enough to a Nemesis plot for me!)

[Fanta]

Fair enough.

For me, I felt the difference between a regular IO'd 50 and a 50 with properly-slotted named IO's & purples (along with a +3/+4 Incarnate level) was pretty significant. In the words of one of my friends I used to have Mid's min/max discussions with on a daily basis, "The most difficult parts of the game get stupid easy after your character becomes an Incarate." I couldn't do near the amount of things with my Warshade with normal IOs as I could a purple'd/"Incarnate-ified" version of him. So, to me, I felt there was definitely more power to be gained after hitting 50.

But, to each his own, I suppose.

I'd ask someone that thought the journey over once they hit 50 to go clear some Banished Pantheon in the revamped DA. They might have to rethink it after a few face plants. The most challenging part of the game was post 50, but you had to put the effort in to make your character up to it. If people enjoy the journey, and that's what they want, fine, just don't tell the rest of us that we shouldn't go from hero to super hero. IO sets made it possible for my defender to clear large DA mobs solo. Could a regular IO'd def do that? I laughingly say no, not without a tray full of inspires.

[Von Krieger]

All the talk of Empaths reminds me of my foray into playing paired Emp/Fire Defenders with a friend. It was monstrous. We could cap Recovery and Regeneration by ourselves, and with Weave, Maneuvers, and Fortitude on top of our healing capacity we were also freakishly tough.

[Neutrio]

I've seen werewolves built in Champions, don't see how a Kheldian would be much more difficult. Now how many points it would take is another story.

Depends ... is the werewolf made as a Heroic or Super Heroic build?  How willing are you to have Disadvantages (not just character, powers/pools too).  I 'm with you ... it shouldn't be that difficult to build a Kheldie (especially with SH points) -- now ... those powers may be a bit more problematic & not always work (that's what XP points & "GM initiated accidents" are for). :)


I think a power pool per form would be easy enough to work up -- since, for the multiforms, you only get squid powers while in squid form (that's a Disadvantage there alone)


Mind you I only played 4th edition rules -- couldn't quite stomach 5th edition

[Fanta]

Exactly why I don't like playing defenders. Everybody else has ideas about how it should be done. Demands for SB, Why don't you do this or do that? They don't want to play one but are happy to tell you how to do it.

Nobody expects blasters or scrappers to do anything but blast or scrap.

If you're doing it right you'd never hear anything.

[Ouul]

Well, since we're still having these feel good talks about our time with the game, I have a few questions I'd like views and opinions on.

Did any of you ever try a Super Reflexes Tanker and what was it like?
Never thought to try it back then and now it's intriguing me as I reminisce. I always felt the set was pretty broken in execution but I made the effort to get a Claw/SR Scrapper to 50 to prove that I did it, especially to one of my friends that loved it and enjoyed bantering back and forth about it.

And...

Does anyone remember what scaling passive buff or debuff quality was added late in the game's life to Super Reflexes?
I am having the damnedest time trying to remember. Was it a To-Hit Debuff on the mobs? A +DEF buff on you?

A little late to the party, but hejtame covered off the second question quite well. The scaling resistance debuff was problematic, but for Tankers it works out about 30-40% resistance to all but psychic with all three passives when you were at 10% health. Not game-chaning, but definitely noticeable.

As for SR tankers? I loved the set for tankers. I had 3 SR tankers over level 35 just before the shutdown, 2 of those at 50. My SR/Staff tanker was well over incarnate capped (~76% def to all positions with [Guardian Spin] buff single stacked, which could boost melée defense to 112% with the amount of recharge sets and SR recharge buff), which meant that unless something had mad +tohit buffs (I'm looking at YOU, Quartz and BAF watchtowers), I would get hit minimally, and what damage got through was eaten up by sets for +regen.

[hejtmane]

I enjoyed pushing the limits of my Scrappers in tanking situations even though they really couldn't tank. I tended to actually take my Provoke powers to help with certain situations like keeping multiple AVs separated such as Romulus and his Nictis. I could survive alright on my own for a bit but as long as the support was buffing me well, I could Provoke "scrank" each of the Nictis away from Rommy til the cows came home.

Yes we could tank very well depending on which sets where used; the right set did not need provoke

Willpower, Inv,Shield and Energy Aura all had taunt auras that where great for tanking in fact on my Shield scrapper I use to steal agro from tanks

Up next was Bio armor

I tanked regularly on my Fire/sd and my DB/EA now I will say that Katana or Broad sword where some of the best  sets to have because they had parry in their back pocket; then later staff with guarded spin.

Heck one of the best tanking jobs on Lord Recluse was by a scrapper when was on the all scrapper STF we put together from the forums and it was Broadsword/sd. We also did and all scrapper ITF and we where able to tank that all of it with no support class

Willpower had the weaker taunt but was the most well rounded if built correctly and I say Invulnerability was right up there with it and Bio Armor was looking ridiculously strong  for tanking

[Takinalis]

Valkyrie Blade was Willpower Broadsword Scrapper. Loved that toon!

[Neutrio]

A true gimp build is a defender who has nothing but healing powers, forgot to even take fortitude, has only one attack so that "He'll never miss a heal", also has medicine too, and a bunch of extra travel powers.

Hrm ... speaking as an Emp/Rad def for most of the 8+ years I played, I never considered myself gimped.  In the beginning, I had almost all the emp powers (never took Absorb Pain) and all of the rad powers that I could get once I ran out of emp powers to claim.  Later, when we got the ability to switch to another set of our AT powers, I had my "balanced" mixed set as my main set & a damage set (later converted to a pure support set - not just with healing powers).


To me, since my powers are primarily Empathy, that seemed to be "my primary job" - not necessarily my only job.  Like someone else said, Blasters blast, Scrappers scrap, Tanks tank & for an Emp/ you heal (roughly 5 out of 9 powers available) & buff (the other 4).


Now, if I had a troller with /Emp (or other powers to help keep the team on our feet) or a team that didn't generally need much healing - which seemed to be happening more often near the end -- then I would cycle through my buffs & damage chain.  It just depended on the group makeup & play style (or lack thereof).  If I needed to be mostly healz (as it generally was in the early years), I would park myself near the tank & watch the team roster panel, click on each person who needed a heal, zap them with Heal Other (or if the powers were ready, CM & Fort) - tank always got the most attention (including remembering to move with them  :P ).  If you proved yourself to be a Leroy Jenkins, well, that was on you & I'd get around to you when the dust settled most likely.


I've heard all the arguments for & against being "only a healer" -- and by those who have played them & those who have a certain expectation from Emp/ or /Emp toons.  To me, it comes down to the team dynamics (ATs, build efficiency, play style, *@#$ happens, etc.).  As Luna said earlier, the word is diversity.  That second set of AT powers really made this especially true (and not just for Emps).

[Brightfires]

When the game comes back, if I don't have a toon in your level range to help you out with Frosty or Atta, by golly, I'll roll one and pl it right quick (if I can at that point, lol) and join you.

Same here.

I was always a bit of an alt-a-holic. My crew's motto seemed to be "There are a whole flock of us already. What's one more?"  ;D

[HEATSTROKE]

 IMO tanking is not just running in and taking aggro.. anyone can do that.. And its not just running your taunt aura..

Tanking IMO is about the ability to keep and control the aggro as well as pull aggro OFF your less sturdy teamates..

[Remaugen]

Holy crapola! Out of town a few days and 55 pages more on this thread, I will never be able to catch up!


Are we there yet?  ;D

[Fanta]

Holy crapola! Out of town a few days and 55 pages more on this thread, I will never be able to catch up!


Are we there yet?  ;D

Nope, don't hold your breath.

[Without_Pause]

All the talk of Empaths reminds me of my foray into playing paired Emp/Fire Defenders with a friend. It was monstrous. We could cap Recovery and Regeneration by ourselves, and with Weave, Maneuvers, and Fortitude on top of our healing capacity we were also freakishly tough.

The problem in that situation would be defender damage and the lack of debuffs. I've been on amazing support heavy teams but some of them dragged. I remember one team that added a Fire blaster. You would be crazy to not notice the difference in speed.

[FloatingFatMan]

Harpo, Devil, FFM, please just stop it already. Okay? Please?

Take the argument elsewhere. It is abundantly clear that NONE of you are going to let this go. And I know I'm not a mod, but Gods almighty I am really getting tired of this.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Sorry mom! :p

[gypsyav]

Depends ... is the werewolf made as a Heroic or Super Heroic build?  How willing are you to have Disadvantages (not just character, powers/pools too).  I 'm with you ... it shouldn't be that difficult to build a Kheldie (especially with SH points) -- now ... those powers may be a bit more problematic & not always work (that's what XP points & "GM initiated accidents" are for). :)


I think a power pool per form would be easy enough to work up -- since, for the multiforms, you only get squid powers while in squid form (that's a Disadvantage there alone)


Mind you I only played 4th edition rules -- couldn't quite stomach 5th edition

It would be a limitation not a disadvantage. :)

I've been playing/GMing Champions off and on for around 25-30 years now. Everything from 3ed to 5th.

[MWRuger]

You deserved to be flogged for that good sir    ;)

Signed Scrappers

I like Knockback too. I just try and turn it into knockdown or knock into walls for easy "arresting".

[NeoFight]

Anyone who is physically disabled want to weigh in?

Just look at my avatar and name !  :D   j/k... 

been reading all these post, and I am looking forward to having the game back.  Character/Account data would be nice, but would mean nothing without the foundation of the game..

GO GUARDIANS !!

[MWRuger]

Couple of things:


1. The minute you say "That's not  how to play the game!" You are automatically wrong. There really was no one way to play or one style that suits everyone. What you are really saying is "That's not how I play." Good for you. Here's a cracker.

2. In my view, it is rude to offer unsolicited advice build or play styles. If they ask, it's fair game. But otherwise it's impolite. It's like telling someone how to raise their kid. Even if you are right they will resent the effrontery.

3. Defenders and Tanks. The two classes that everyone is an expert on and is desperate to tell you how wrong you are doing it. On a team I think people should be concentrating on what they are doing and not how everyone else plays.

Say some person plays badly. It could be they are new to the AT or having a bad day or maybe the last team they were on gave them crappy build advice that they took. Unless they get obnoxious, just don't team with them anymore. I saw a team leader ream out some schmo who, admittedly, played his tank less than optimally. He kicked him. So I quit the team, told the leader he was an ass, PM'ed the guy and we teamed for a few hours. He wasn't great, but this game doesn't require only optimal builds.

We did a bunch of missions, other people joined us and we all had a good time. Turns out out that he was trying to tend to his kid who wasn't feeling well and he was distracted. He wasn't the best tank I ever teamed with, but he was certainly more amiable than the first jack ass. I might have earned at faster pace on Team Ass but I would have had less fun.

4. We all have a vision of what we would like the game to be when and how it comes back. We have no control and little influence on any of it. But I would hope that we all do have one thing in common. We all want the game back as the first step.