Erratic1

Devastating Blow has a cast arcanatime of 2.904, 144.5171 Energy/48.1724 Smashing damage according to City of Data Swoop is 1.452, 142.6402 Lethal damage Cleave is 2.508, 172.6697 Lethal damage So yes, Swoop + Cleave can be done in the time of a Devastating Blow, while delivering more than twice as much damage*. But then Battle Axe does not have a damage aura, or a mechanic to splash damage, or milk contamination for healing. I will say from a pure satisfaction standpoint I have enjoyed Battle Axe more than Radiation Melee. *Devastating Blow is applying a Mag 3 Disorient (60% chance), guaranteed Contamination to the target, and lowering the target's Defense for 15 seconds versus Knockup (70% chance) and Knockdown (80% chance) for Swoop and Cleave. Consumption of Contamination by Devastating Blow will deliver 18 damage to up to 5 nearby targets--not a lot, though functionally a free hit and up to 90 more damage being dealt out.

While I never, across any of my characters, have played matched primary/secondary sets, it is a repeated observation that the weakness of either primary or secondary are usually somewhat negated by its opposite. Rad Melee, in my estimation, would seriously benefit from +Recharge, which is something Rad Armor provides. You could likewise get +Recharge in various forms from Energy Armor, Electric Armor, Super Reflexes, or Stone Armor. It is somewhat of a shame Rad Melee does not come with more than one power which does Knockdown/Knockback, as that is another vector for +Recharge via Force Feedback. However, as Proton Sweep is a pretty miserable power, you could take Cross Punch to both give you more area damage capability and +Recharge. Hmmm...I may have to try building to that end.

Agreed. Rad Melee definitely has some...drawbacks, just hitting hard is not one of them. I have two or three Rad Melee characters, and they are okay, but none of them really push the envelope. I regret I did not do more with Stone Melee sooner, as it feels so much smoother while conveying a sense of pounding what you are fighting--though, if you are like me, you have to find a way to justify your power's appearance. While it also it not going to be an envelope pushing combination, I have had great fun working up a Stone Melee/SR scrapper. I wonder what I could do with Stone Melee paired with Ninjitsu or Shield.

?!?!? Open up Mids and go to Powerset Comparison. You will find Rad Melee is one of the hardest hitting offense sets in the game. For raw damage it outperforms Battle Axe, which is definitely a hard hitting set. Rad Melee also outperforms Battle Axe for raw DPS. War Mace compares better in terms of raw damage, being roughly comparable, but again falls behind in terms of DPS. The only set I can think of which produces similar raw hit values is Energy Melee and the only set which leaps to mind for better DPS is Claws. Yes, Rad Melee hits slower than most other sets--that is its balancing factor which keeps it from just blowing other offensive sets out of the water. That all said, how a set feels is often meaningful to how enjoyable it is. For a similar feels but faster attack rate, I would suggest Energy Melee or Stone Melee.

If Batman can drive the atomic-powered Batmobile all over Gotham with not a care for what what is come out the exhaust, I think radiation heroes are probably okay. But I have to admit, even as a kid I wondered about what would happen if a villain blew up the Batmobile.

There are certainly merits to Shield/StJ.

I am currently trying to work Fold Space into mine and unlike with most of my other Tanker, the Build Up power so its yank foes in, go to three combo points, dish out area damage from both offense and defensive sets.

I am currently levelling up a Rad/StJ Tanker. He's in his mid-late 30s. Won't call him the ultimate Tanker or anything, but he's enjoyable enough.

Did they hit anything, or were they confining themselves to even con opponents? Some sort of recollection on the need of the developers to nerf player overperformance demonstrated by showing a developer taking on a +5 foe and defeating it being followed up by people asking how the developer so reliably hit the +5 target and the need then by the developers to backtrack comes to mind as occurring before ED, as well as there being a movement amongst some of the players complaining about how everyone slots in the same manner. And while it is fuzzy, I am pretty sure my preferred slotting was more along the lines of 2 Accuracy + 4 Damage. But like I said, its been a long time.

Clones and Duplicates (Protean Arc) cheat and have powers you do not have at the levels where you encounter them. I have a screenshot somewhere of my duplicate on the Protean Arc hitting my character for over a 1000 damage when the character in question was in his low 20s. Edit: Found it...My double has Crushing Uppercut, which he used from stealth for the crit hit.

As you have some overlap between power effects between primary and secondary (endurance recovery/healing) you have flexibility in choice of which to take/use, leaving open slots for other powers. DM grants you a long lasting damage buff, EA grants you recharge--just have to be able to maintain the endurance expenditure and both sets have powers for that. You should lean into +Recharge as it makes everything smoother.

I say such things and people act like I've pooped in their coffee cups as they are having morning breakfast. I will note as well, Shield on a Scrapper has a taunt aura: Power 'Against All Odds' (Scrapper_Defense.Shield_Defense.Against_all_Odds)

Were I inclined to do a matched set, it would likely be an Energy/Energy Scrapper.

I have NEVER run matched Pri/Sec and been playing since Beta. I just cannot bring myself to do it. 😁

I have had a fair amount of fun on a DM/EA scrapper.

@hakurr, seeing as there are replies in the other melee AT forums, I will respond here.... Highest damage is going to be Scrapper. If you go that route, go Shield before Bio, before Stone. Highest survivability is going to be Tanker. If you want to blow everything else out of the water as goes survivability, go Stone, before Bio, before Shield. Not that any of the armor sets you have listed are going to suck or that any cannot be a good base, but if you're squeezing out every ounce of performance..... Brute is, theoretically between Scrapper and Tanker in survivability, but with the right build a Scrapper can be so survivable you'd never notice in comparison to a Brute. But a Brute will -=NOT=- equal a Tanker's survivability. Brute in theory is between Scrapper and Tanker as goes damage but Tanker overflow in survivability and so can dedicate more resources to upping damage and have larger area effects. A Brute might manage more damage on a single hit but for clearing maps, Tanker will come out ahead. So your order is Scrapper > Tanker > Brute. If you decide to go Brute, EM/Bio should be pretty beastie. Electric Melee is pretty mediocre regardless of AT, though I do have an Elec/Energy Scrapper I am working up who has performed better than any other Electric Melee character I have tried.

I would have sworn crashless Super Strength was already offered to the community already and a sizable enough minority rejected it.

Naritively she killed Thor (What If). Narratively she duplicates others poweres. To the extent she fights, it is most often one-on-one as a powerhouse. Toi the extent she scraps, it's like Superman being in a red sun situation--a temporary diversion from what is normal.

Rogue goes toe to toe with Thor and Captain Marvel. If Rogue is a scrapper the term has lost all meaning.

"Busy" was in reference to Bio--"@Spaghetti Betty for my game play i think SS would be better on a less busy primary." Not sure where the notion comes from that 3 clicks and stances means you are playing Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on a pipe organ, but some people prefer never doing anything outside using their attack powers apparently, so situationally doing anything else is not their cup of tea. Stone Melee is really awesome. It is like the love child of Radiation Melee and SS (though of course it predates Radiation Melee). Not in love with its default visuals but it does alternate animations featuring cyrstals.

Guess that confirms things have been this way for a while.

I have a tentative "final" framework, with some wiggle room (about six slots and an open power slot) for her. She is currently holding somewhere just short of 40th level. The real problem has been frustration with my playing situation. I play her on Indom with a friend who refuses to consider other servers to play on (he has reasons for this). In particular, my frustration is with the low population of the server and the culture which has developed--they gather nightly for Adamastor, GM kills both blue and redside, and mothership raids happen frequently. But it is a challenge getting a single instance of a weekly TF done, let alone across multiple characters. Faced with such, I have been playing other games much more than CoH of late. Planned build has her positional defenses all floating at 53% or so, with the option for perma-Hasten (though I have been blah on using Hasten for some number of years short of it transforming some other ability from a semi-periodic boost to something permanent, say like Energize in the Energy Aura set or shooting for double-stacked Rage or Folow Up). Hopefully I will get out of the funk I am in and get back to playing her (and others) more.

Odd, as I have been secretly hoping you'd go Stj/Nin. 😛 Go Scrapper. True, but it's not like he is going to take hits like The Thing or Colossus.

Not sure a thread which is 5 months old, had its original end 4 months ago, and was laying inactive for over two months until it came active again can be derailed as it was mostly dead. Arguably the derail started with the person you are saying had good observation posting the following last Friday: 😁

I have not found Stone Melee to be that bad, but Rad Melee is definitely up there (got 2 50s with it, and both struggled until I found solutions).