SomeGuy

Friends don't let friends join the USAF as security forces. In this instance, security forces is regen. Do something else. Anything else. Seriously, all the other armor sets are good. Mace/Rad?

You really shouldn't play Rad Melee then. 😄 KM has a rep for fast animation times. It doesn't have anything with a medium-long animation time for it's best ST chain other than Concentration Strike. The BM fight on Apex is pretty crappy towards melee. I wouldn't judge a melee set on that fight.

Brutes are pretty well between tanker and scrappers, damage and survivability wise. Just comes down to what you value more, and if you can't decide, you Brute. Then probably never look back. They are an awesome class, and the game really was City of Brutes at one point. Everyone played a brute. The DPS is really predictable (this is a good thing IMO) and so is the survivability. But why a Brute...You want to do more than Tanker DPS, but want to live more than a scrapper/stalker. Or you want to do damage similar (but not quite) as well as a scrapper/stalker but want a taunt aura. A lack of taunt aura is why I won't do Fiery Aura on anything other than a Brute. And boy howdy, FA is fun.

It really is. Honestly, I'm wondering if a thread just in the AT forums with the current list (or something, whatever) consolidating it in the OP, and the next few posts bookmarked by other posters in case the OP needs to dip out, is an idea, Or can a mod move this thread to the general AT forums and do something similar? I'm not sure. I know this thread is in the scrapper forums, but it has ALL the ATs measuring their performance with pylons.

The build, if you're curious, is in this thread: The build runs T4 Muscle, Barrier, Reactive, and Support. Support isn't active, just slotted, for the runs. Support gives a universal end discount when slotted so it's a big help on this one. And I only take the build to 40% ranged defense and let barrier cover the last 5% (even when it's at it's weakest). I open with Venom Grenade and Shatter Armor to start stacking -RES. I reapply Venom as close to 16s as I can and Shatter Armor every 20s (that is how long the -res debuff lasts for each). Venom-Shatter BU-Single-Burst-Single. The build doesn't have any issues with AOE. I've farmed with it plenty. Heavy Burst, Suppression, and Venom Grenade combined with the pets make mobs drop fine. The build is really versatile, especially considering how much it brings to the team. Just not with personal DPS.

oh hey bringing old school back Crabstermind 0:52 That's not a typo. That's not a best run. That's an average.

I don't remember the hard time average, but I personally watched Kanil get multiple runs in the 1:30s with a BS/BIO(/X?) scrapper. I'm not sure when the TW nerf happen. I do know I was averaging 0:52s with my TW/BIO/MA scrapper. I know I wasn't getting crazy differences in pre and post nerf moonbeam times. Five to six seconds. Nothing crazy that can't be covered with RNG. So a hard date for when that happened is cool, but I personally am not to crazy about it.

Please do. I'll shoot you a PM of the times I have collected.

Ice/Cold/Mace Corruptor 1:53 I always felt sloppy doing these runs, I really feel like this time could be a lot lower. I'm definitely not as experienced with ranged as I am with melee. For fun, I did two runs with T4 BP Lore and T4 Support running. :28 and :36. Freaking lol. -RES is pretty cool.

Sent you mine. It still takes Whirling Mace. And I usually skip Crowd Control, but it fit so I took it.

But Elelctrical Melee suc... ElM/SD/MB Stalker 2:29 LAWL

I DEFINITELY see the appeal of this, but this wasn't a good change to a lot of vet players that took the time to really figure out how to get the most out of sets like that. Oh well. I get the whole "best for all, woe for some" mentality.

This. I don't really care about the math at this point any more. I just know I use the times as a metric to compare builds to each other. @Bill Z Bubba Yeah, if you aren't doing MB/GL that's the way to go. If you do throw them in, then obviously it changes things. You just replace Slash with MB/GL every other rotation. But the ole tried and true FU SL FOC is a classic that you can't ever go wrong with.

Poke your head in the Pylon Thread. There are a lot of different melee AT combos that can solo AVs. Something doesn't HAVE to be EM or Bio to do it. People were dropping AVs with pre-buff tanker DPS well before EM got buffed or Bio even existed. Allllllll the armor sets can drop an AV (just don't do regen). All the primaries can also, but Electrical Melee and Staff standout as having the most issues with that. They both have pretty low single target DPS which are similar to each other. EM, DB, WM, Kat, and Claws all stand out to me as able to easily get it done. Those five really don't have a crazy discrepancy in ST performance. Ice Melee and TW (which is still really good) are about the same now. Rad Melee performs as well as IM/TW single target wise but it takes some weird proc manipulating building to do so. That one even threw me off, and I'm pretty good at this stuff. DM has a rep for being a ST monster, but it actually isn't as good as those other sets (unless you can make sure to keep Soul Drain saturated). But DM is a legit fun set to me due to how you have to leverage it. I've got a EM/FA/Soul brute that feels VERY much like a scrapper (squishy as hell too) that pumps out a TON of ST and AOE DPS. If you're willing to go the brute route, I can absolutely vouch for Fire Armor being a really fun glass cannon. Fire Armor has been the flavor of the month since the 2000s for a reason.

Kat/Bio/Zapp Scrapper 1:36 SD-GD-GC-SD-Zapp-GC I was getting pretty PO'ed with this guy trying to figure out a decent chain that was reliable. Had to go old school with some napkin math.

I'm biased towards claws and heavily against spines. I've done both at launch, mid game, and twlight. Claws is numerically just a better set. Claws does baller AOE and ST. Spines doesn't even do AOE as good as claws (which to be fair...is a REALLY high bar) and doesn't come remotely close in ST. You can be chugging merrily along with spines mowing down mob after mob and get stopped in your tracks by an EB or higher. This isn't a problem for claws. Spines entire gimmick is AOE, which it doesn't even come in first with. Claws entire gimmick is just being awesome, and anecdotally it does come in first with, Obviously if the playstyle and aesthetics don't jive for you, they don't jive. Energy Aura is just a superb armor set. Can't go wrong.

I lump -reg and -res as more DPS. And with enough DPS you can absolutely get past high HP encounters without -reg or -res. You just rarely see this due to the fact you still have people thinking regen is good and KM is bad (this is a great example of why this game is great...you can get stuff done with weird choices). But I've seen more than enough TFs and trials get stopped in their tracks because there wasn't enough DPS. This isn't WoW. The few fights in this game that aren't tank'n'spanks are implemented pretty poorly. And whenever someone does come from a game where kiting a boss, or something similar is the norm, and they do it here? It really only leads to heartache. Clearly DPS doesn't mean shart if they can't effect the regen of a thing. Hence why...MOAR DPS. -REG and -RES are why solo cold domination characters can achieve interesting things solo. -RES is a HUGE reason why x/bio scrappers are so sought after. -RES just makes the entire team hit harder. It's beautiful. easily my favorite debuff.

I freaking love TW, but I sadly have to agree with this. TW isn't something you do as a first time player. You can't go wrong with any primary really, you can really only go wrong with a secondary as a brute. I'm talking regen. Don't let him do regen. It's like letting your friend join the military as military police or something. You don't do that to them. Outrider is giving some solid advice for a new player. Notice how he doesn't mention regen.

I can totally help you get that time down if you want. My claws/bio averages 1:35 using the FU-Snipe-FOCUS-FU-SLASH-FOCUS repeat chain. Eviscerate would absolutely be a DPS loss, so no hair off your back thinking you'd have to do something you don't want to get the time lower. 😄 And I'm like you, I just stick with certain incarnate stuff across the board based off of AT. Keeps it easier this way when you're making a ton of characters. 🙂

Got T4 reactive. Brute EM/FA/Soul 1:52 Average I know Degen is better on pylons, but once stuff starts gearing up past standard AV HP it doesn't scale as well. So, I just do reactive.

Well this made me LOL. This guy is T3 agility, t3 reactive. and t4 ageless. Brute EM/FA/Soul 2:01 I had two runs under two minutes. And RNG isn't a thing that really hits a brute hard. So, with practice and a reactive upgrade I know that time is going to get noticeably lower.

Claws: Followup, Focus, Slash, and Spin are essential. Everything else is flavor. SR? Everything is a must have, except Elude. It's flavor.

This sounds soooo eerily similar to how I dealt with it. Fought tooth and nail to make it work. Slowly but surely stopped making regens. Still love scrappers though. I'll roll anything as long as it's fun. But you did remind me of something. I remember when WP and DB were introduced in the same issue (there are a LOT of abandoned db/wp scraps now). Over time, I would think how I would fix regen. And it became clear to me they just said "screw it" and made another set. Introducing, Willpower! It's a solid set. Set and forget like old-school regen. Layers of different types of survivability. It's a very good set at what it does. Like, Invincibility got nerfed HARD, but it got rebalanced REALLY well. Willpower seems to be made at the attempt to do a good rebalance to regen. Regen is the only legacy melee armor set that is just...bad. Like, if Willpower didn't exist, sure. Regen. But Willpower does exist. So, I really scratch my head at anyone that goes out of their way to roll Regen knowing Willpower exists.

Staff is a REALLY fun set play wise and style (if that's your thing). Sadly, Staff is numerically (DPS wise) the worst performing melee set in the game. If that isn't something you care about, you're gonna have a really good time. The set feels and looks fantastic. Luckily, Electric Armor is one of the best armor sets in the game. The ONLY downside (and this is personal opinion) about ElA on scrappers is a lack of taunt aura. Once again, if this doesn't concern you, good pick. And if you dig the aesthetics of it too? Hell yeah. And I have to wonder. If OMG MAX DPS isn't your main concern, Staff seems to go really well on a tanker due to one of it's stances. That an option? ElA/Staff tanker would be a serious meaty beast that would have a hard time dying. You would be able to max out SLFCE (and I think psi?) resists with minimal investment and hit SL defense soft cap fairly easy, if not other types of damage soft caps.

I have numerical and statistical data for all three of these sets. Staff is, sadly, numerically last. I'm actually wondering how KM got such a bad rep here. Granted, I TOTALLY get it's a set that takes some mental work to get the most out of. Then again, there seems to be a lot of love for regen. So, who knows.