SomeGuy

Same, I remember Uber telling me exactly that and it was followed up by a proverbial "shrug" of not sure if that's actually a thing. And for real. That is such a seriously nice QOL. Very underrated. Not sure when they start counting though. I'm guessing once the frst tick of damage hits? I have no clue. I need to see if the training dummies do the same thing.

I'm still shooketh this ball was thrown down a abyss. The people making content for this decades old game seem to be really understanding how important costumes are so I really had to scratch my head what was going on there. For me personally, even if Stone Armor had a taunt aura this oversight by itself would make me question rolling one. And Stone Armor is GOOD.

I solo. A lot. So a taunt aura is a must have for me. That's a personal thing to some. If Stone Armor didn't have it's...interesting...costume choices I'd go with that. It has really good toughness and gobs of damage. My fav kat combo? Depends on what I'm in the mood for. If I'm solo-ing, Kat/Inv. Legacy sets and all. If I do join a team, and based on their make up, I might drive my Kat/Bio. I haven't done Kat/Rad, but that HAS to be a really good option. I've done Rad on a lot of different characters and it's a solid darned choice.

For real. I normally ignore ridiculous threads, but the title on this one had me look. The first post has me even responding. There's a reason I have a full roster of scrappers and no brutes. I like to do damage to things. Scrappers do that better then brutes. I want to live forever and do damage? Tanker. I want to run the bleeding edge of life and death and deal gobs of damage? Scrapper. I want to not do either of those as well as a tanker or scrapper? Brute. Brutes used to out shine scrappers in every way. Then they were nerfed to fall in line damage wise to scraps. Then ATO1 hit. That was a blow to brutes in the damage department. Then ATO2...lol. Yeah. Brutes may as well have not even gotten an ATO that pass. Whereas scrappers got one of the best in the game. Before the tanker changes I'd feel differently, but here we are. I do remember City of Brutes. Very. Well.

Why does Inv get left out of the picture? I've done Katana with: EnA Bio Nin SR Inv Electric Armor As much as I really like Nin and SR, I can't handle them due to a lack of taunt aura. Same with Electric. I haven't done Stone, but it also doesn't have a taunt aura. In terms of squish, Bio is EASILY the squishiest out of all those. It also does gobs of damage. It's a trade-off. Do NOT sleep on Invincibility.

I skip the powers in Katana that are yellow. When Dull Pain is active it HP caps this character.

Yeah I have a Ele/TW tanker. I used to rock a TW/Ele Brute....but tanker changes. The only other armor set for tankers that I feel like get's a better survivability nod from me is Rad Armor. But I'm a big fan of Ele Armor and TW paired together. Performs REALLY well and it has some real nostalgia for me. For scrapper? I'm a big fan of TW on ENA, Rad, or Bio. Ena/Rad are both really sturdy and Bio is...well, a very glass cannon nuke. Also, they all three have taunt auras. Very important for me. I mostly solo so this matters a lot to me. I'm a really big fan of my TW/ENA Scrapper. Does really good damage and I can easily get the survivability numbers I want. I have to compromise a lot with resist/hybrid sets to do that.

With the TW? Easy really. Claws/Kat? Same rotation as a Snipe. Can't do it in an EM chain without including Energy Punch to keep things seamless. I need to go back and edit my MA build to include Char in the chain (to see if it works TBH). But my builds have a lot of recharge. Close to perma hasten. And I always go Ageless, so thats another 10% at the WEAKEST point of the buff. And I park my dudes in Cim for another 10% recharge. I do Cim over Oro cause I want the +res to all also. Oh. I don't do Char every rotation. That needs clarification. The Kat/Claws chain are good examples of that. Kat? Just another GC in it's place. Claws? Shockwave instead. And I've found Shockwave being better ST DPS then Strike. And it's way more versatile.

That's the thing. Only on two of my runs did the proc go off when I needed it to. I don't know WTF is going on. I'm monitoring my damage and everything to make sure I'm not getting some weird buff I'm not aware of. I know I've really gotten in to a flow of my build knowing when things are going to come off cooldown, And I use WS way more during my BM chain than the second AoD I want.

I got to see @Ratch_ do some wild stuff. Also, I can't figure out why the TW/ENA is doing as well as it is. I just did 5 more runs with no outside buffs, all build. Average on those runs was 1:15.

OK, these have all been done on Brainstorm due to the fact that the new pylons by vanguard base make testing a LOT easier. These are all AVERAGES of 10+ runs. Not best runs. No outside buffs, all build. Hybrid off. Etc. Going to go in order of fastest. Scrapper DB/BIO 1:01 (Degen/Enflame/Melt Armor/Proc) BF - AS - SS - RoF (ATO2 in BF) Scrapper Kat/BIO 1:03 (Degen/Enflame/Melt Armor/Proc) SD - GD - GC - SD - Char - GD (ATO2 in SD) Scrapper TW/BIO 1:06 (Degen/Enflame/Melt Armor/Proc) BM - FT - AoD - RA - FT - AoD - RA - FT - Char momentum drop CB - FT - AoD - RA - FT (ATO2 in FT) Scrapper MA/BIO 1:13 (Degen/Enflame/Melt Armor/Proc) EC - SK - CaK - RoF (ATO2 in EC) Scrapper TW/ENA 1:23 (Degen/Melt Armor/Enflame/Proc) BM - FT - AoD - RA - FT - AoD - RA - FT - Char momentum drop CB - FT - AoD - RA - FT (ATO2 in FT) Scrapper EM/ENA 1:37 (Degen/Melt Armor/Enflame) TF - ET - RoF - BS (ATO2 in ET) Scrapper CLAWS/EA 1:39 (Degen/Enflame/Melt Armor/Proc) FU - Focus - Slash - Char - FU - Focus - Slash - Shockwave (ATO2 in FU) The TW/ENA is the one I tested the most. I can't figure out why that combo is doing THAT well. And that's with a build useful for anything. All the ENA builds are TBH, but that one really shocked me for how consistent it was at doing DPS. Now with that said, TW and KAT absolutely need the FF procs in FT/AoD and SD/GD to do their best. It's still wild to me they are that much of a smoke show. I ran into @Ratch_ while testing, and he proposed giving Char a shot. That was a good idea. Very good. He was dropping pylons in 30 some odd seconds. Was silly.

Respectfully...lol I know what that means. I'm not sure why you used the Sentinel AT for your example, since the OP asked for opinions on what to pair the scrapper version of DM with, but OK.

OMG. The NPCs around the new pylons call out your kill time.

I'd use IOs.

So, because of @Ratch_'s recent post regarding TW, I swapped my rotation and slotting up in my TW/ENA a bit. And Shaved 9s off my pylon time Scrapper TW/ENA 1:23 (Degen/RoF/MA/Enflame/Proc) BM - FT - AoD - RA - FT - AoD - RA- FT RoF - CB - FT - AoD - RA - FT If the FF procs don't go off in the BM chain I'll do a Whirling Smash after the second FT. So it'll look like: FT - AoD - RA- FT - WS - RA - FT This is NOT a best run. This is an average of 10+ runs, hybrid OFF. Scrapper - Titan Weapons - Energy AuraRoFEnflameTest.mbd

DM needs a really big re-work and how slow Soul Drain casts, and an ACC rework needed (this needs to be removed for 1x mob. Even with a maxed saturation Soul Drain it only gets to middle of the pack in terms of ST DPS. I like DM a lot, play it a lot, but I know where it stands. And it is barely standing.

Monster hunting is still on the table.

MA/BIO is a really really good DPS monster. Eagle's Claw with the Crit Strike proc? Mmmm. That thing goes off and the next two MA attacks you use in that window have a crazy high chance to crit.

And then some how set them on fire, rendering them useless. Magically bad.

Shadow Maul is cold dishwater garbage. Just remember that. It's beyond skippable when you have a chain.

Energy Aura and Rad Armor (I read what you wrote, just here as a comparison) are two of the best armor sets in the game. Bio Armor is the best offensive armor set in the game and meshes with DM's weak offense (ST and AOE) very VERY well. Fire Armor is VERY squishy but is adds an extremely strong layer of AOE damage output while also helping with ST damage quite a lot. Shield looks cool to some and not to others. It is NOT the AOE powerhouse some say it is. One attack is not that good (unless it is Burn). DM is viable with everything and you can absolutely make DM AOE viable with smart slotting. I'll put 1B(illion) inf on the line I can out-AOE most melee characters (that aren't fire armor) with my DB/BIO/Soul scrapper. I personally don't think AOE is important to build for, I never do build for it actually. Everything dies so fast anyways. Some do though. You will get mixed opinions on that one. I don't consider it effective. Some just want to delete entire mobs in less then a second.

Everything low level is going to be rough going. With that said, I can attest that TW/FIRE scrapper is bonkers damage (I've done TW/FIRE scrapper and Brute extensively). Fire is really really weak for survival on a Scrap/Brute, regardless of how low/high level you are. What it makes up for is Offensive output. TW? Oof. It really needs it's attacks to not feel slow. Once you do, woo boy. The set becomes a monster. Now this is normally how ALL sets are (except Claws...it gets everything it needs attack wise by the time it gets Focus). Claws has really poor frontloaded damage though. It's DPS is top-tier though. Anyways, maybe this will give you some ideas:

Oh, you should for sure. I've been able to replicate that time on more than one occasion with my DB/ENA/FIRE. Had more then a few that were less with the DB/BIO/FIRE. RNG is a thing.

lol this reminded me this is a thing. Easy to test this out now. Just keep forgetting to turn on Hybrid since I almost never do 😄

The pylons for testing (if you are facing the base entrance) on the right side of the base are super nice. They respawn just a few seconds after they are defeated and they also don't attack back OR activate the dropship. Just LFG queue to Apex and you are right there. It's really nice. I was getting 1:20-1:25 with my TW/ENA/ICE. The pet will probably just instantly die in actual gameplay though. Still, neat. I salute you, Spicy Frosty.