SomeGuy

They're talking about me BTW.

Not gonna lie, I'm going to be very surprised this set isn't a monster now. I'll have to play around on Brainstorm with one tomorrow with the changes. I was thinking the changes to Cleave taking Targeted AOE sets was a nerf at first, but with certain combinations (looking at how I build Axe/Bio for example) this could be a really nasty buff. This means getting two extra -RES procs with that combination, whereas before you were only getting the one slotted in genetic contamination. And the AOE changes to the set look pretty gnarly. The changes look pretty gnarly. Press follow on target. Build Up. Cleave. ATO2 proc goes off. You are at target. Axe Cyclone. Pull everything to you. Pendulum. Fall in to a ST rotation and you use Axe Cyclone and Pendulum when up. *Cleave and Focus are the same range now. lol

Is the range increase on Cleave a typo? It was 10. Says it's going to 40.

*sigh* We have very few static ways to measure the performance of a set in this game. Optimizing your performance against a pylon absolutely transfers to your play in the rest of the game. There are a lot of reasons I can take the same builds I use for pylon times and solo any TF I want in the game (new ITF excluded, haven't done it yet). Yes, this includes Apex, Tin, and LGTF. And FSC also takes a -RES proc. -RES applies to EVERYTHING you hit in this game. It is an absolute force multiplier. Every *thing* on your team/league now does more damage to that target that has -RES applied. Full 8 man team that is very pet heavy? All it takes is one stack of a -RES proc that is 20% for that to be absolutely encounter changing in terms of damage received on that target. I am VERY glad the set is getting the love it absolutely needed cause I thematically have always liked FM, but man, this is a lot.

Whoah, these changes make Fiery Melee leap frog to the top of ST DPS. I'm averaging less than a minute against a pylon with this build: I knew the fact the set was going to be able to take the -RES procs would be huge, but I didn't see HOW huge. Cycling GFS-Snipe-Inc-GFS-FS-Inc repeat for my chain. If this was the intention, well, they did it. If not, I don't have a solution? Maybe change back (or change the ratio?) of the damage type of the attacks? edit: Done a lot more runs. I'm averaging in the 1:10s now. Maybe my first batch of runs were RNG heavy.

*stares at Rage* lol This logic isn't shared with everyone. On topic: did i miss the intended changes to Burn after the roll back? I just did a few runs in a ST scenario with it in the current state and didn't notice anything to cry about my my EM/FA/SOUL Brute. Is Mag1 KB protection even worth it in Temp Protection or do we still need to slot for at least 4? I haven't looked at the minimum for it in a while. I was always "4 or 12" sort of guy. I've ALWAYS been really annoyed at the KB hole in FA. Having to take Acrobatics pre Inventions was such a waste. It's only slightly better now. I do have to agree with @Sovera. If Burn gets nuked from orbit it makes the set dead in the water. The set is INCREDIBLY squishy on anything but a Tanker and it's offensive output is it's one main draw. Fiery Embrace is absolutely not enough to make up for that.

Just for the next attacks used in that time window, so that second part you said. It's NEVER a 3.25s time window btw. Every attack has a Animation Time Before Effect. I just brought up Seismic Smash randomly. Something like Midnight Grasp is DRASTICALLY different. The Arcana Time is what you should care about for cast time. Animation Time gives a rough idea when you move on to the next attack. So, SS has a AT of 1.716s. The ATBE of SM is .833. You'd substract the ATBE from the AT. So just 1.716-0.833=0.883 THIS is the number you now care about. You would subtract this from the duration of the ATO2 proc and that's how much duration you'd have left of the proc to fit attacks in. For SS? You'd have 2.367s left for the duration of the proc. Trust me, this ain't bad. Pretty good comparatively. To compare, Devastating Blow in Rad Melee is 2.51s left and it's REALLY good. You can get, normally, two more attacks off in these windows. In Midnight Grasp you'd have 1.71s left. You'll only get one more attack in this window, unless the one after MG has a really really fast ArcanaTime. But if you want to get in the details of this stuff, the Animation Time isn't what you want. Just cause something's AniTime might only be 1.33 doesn't mean you can start casting the next attack that soon. Look at Moonbeam for example. It has a 1.33s AniTime but a 1.584 ArcanaTime. You aren't going to be able to move to the next attack until the ArcanaTime is complete.

AOE situations aren't what are likely to stop you in your tracks, high HP ST situations are. This isn't a playstyle preference thing. It's just reality. This doesn't happen much any more, but I have seen more then a few TFs fail at the end cause there wasn't enough DPS for a single AV/GM. Obviously you need a balance, but going all-in on AOE is a really really bad idea unless you only ever do radios or something. Food for thought when picking where you slot it.

Here's the real answer people hate...the answer is...that depends. If you goal is DPS? No combo. Just the BF-AS-SS-AS chain when your recharge is high enough. If you are doing a procced out build and DPS is your goal? Most likely you won't have enough recharge and the Empower combo actually becomes very worthwhile. NS-AS-BF-SS Attack Vitals is a pretty hard hit on sustained DPS due to Vengeful Slice's long long longgggg animation. Cool attack, looks awesome doing a SHYROUKEN with a sword, but it's a DPS hit. I won't even take Vengeful Slice on my DB characters.

Six slot your T1 attack and slap the entire set there. Then ctrl-click that attack to set it to auto. Just in case, /s

No probably to it, it does. Stone Armor is a really good secondary for scraps if you don't care about the taunt aura. It's really sturdy and adds a LOT of damage.

And a take on a procced version:

and THEN they have to not hate you

Both are great sets. I honestly don't know how it wouldn't be a good pairing. Here's a hot take on the combo just doing straight-through setting (this is still crazy good DPS):

These are going to be some rough levels for anything. I'd definitely go with @BrandX's advice, if anything the Kismet getting priority.. If you can't hit you can't crit. If the thing stays alive it is going to eventually kill you.

lol this is hilarious

So when is science going to allow me to have sex with a forum post? Cause I choose this one. As someone that extensively put in a LOT of time figuring out TW and ways to optimize it before the nerfs/changes, what you've done is absolutely beautiful to me.

Yes, as a "scrapper".

Claws is one of the best scrapper sets IMO BUT it does not have burst/frontloaded damage like others. It absolutely feels different then the other melee sets. War Mace and Energy Melee stand out as feeling very opposite to me. Those sets are very crunchy in comparison. Ninja is...a good secondary on scrappers IMO. It gets compared a lot to SR, and I agree to the why of that. Both sets have their strengths/weaknesses compared to the other. I've played both sets pretty heavily and I personally enjoy Nin more. That make it better? Who knows. I've got a MA/NIN scrapper that I can't stop laughing at every time I play it cause the costume is Dan Hibiki and the character is named Ti Kwan Leep.

I totalllly get this. I legit do NOT like my costume being suppressed when out of combat with my ENA for example. I was going to do SM/ENA but my concept steered me to do SM/RAD instead. And omg, so glad I did cause the concept is hilarious (to me). @FUBARczar I personally don't think anything less than adding a hefty chunk of recharge/slow/regen protection is gonna do it without changing the core gameplay mechanics of the set. The Absorption toggle is an interesting idea...very. I wonder why it hasn't been implemented 😄

Stone Armor for scraps is legit durable. I just personally wish it had a taunt aura. If it did it would be a no-brainer for me to pick it over Bio since they do just as much damage as each other.

One of my big reasons for liking absorb is because it get's past HP caps. Like how procs get past damage caps. Layers of mitigation. Mmmmmm.

I didn't say it would be ideal 😛 I just know you could do it and it wouldn't be bad. I'd be surprised if it wasn't actually good. Do a hover/ranged claws scrapper. Really confuse a team.

You can play a Claws scrapper entirely at range and not be gimped. In fact, it actually wouldn't be bad at all. Focus, Shockwave, and Snipe. 😄 This would actually be pretty good, since Shoclwave can be used in a ST chain too. You'd just lose out on the +DMG/+TOHIT of Follow-Up and the -RES with Achilles in Slash. You'd still get some -RES from Shockwave, but the Annihalation -RES isn't as strong as the Achille's one. It would be pretty funny to see a Claws scrapper completely at range while a blaster stays in melee on a team.

I'm to biased against regen to fairly answer that. The smartass in me wants to say "reroll is a good resist level for the set". You're gonna get your best survivability prioritizing Def (no damage) - Resist (still get hit but not as hard) - HP (got hit but didn't faceplant) - HP/s (regen) x/Regen does this in reverse. That ain't good. And honoestly, inflicting damage is more beneficial than HP/s in my experience. Make it dead then it can't hit you. Regen doesn't contribute to that. The regen has to be ABSURD (pre-nerf IH) to make it good, and even when IH wasn't in it's current state, there is no way it would last in the current game with the flood of damage coming in. You can't regen if you are dead. I slapped together a db/wp scrapper out of boredom and these were the #s I got: That ain't bad at all. Not one bit. Good defense and good resist. Good HP (only 400 away from scrapper cap WITHOUT accolades). I slapped a -TOHIT IO in RttC also. If something would get the full -TOHIT debuff with this, then it would be soft capped to SL. *with accolades this is less than 100HP of cap.