SomeGuy

Man, I coulda swore it was different on a Brute. I had a claws/ele brute (before it was cool, yo!).

I imagine it would just be swapping Slash every other chain with it if so? I haven't done a Claws brute in forever. I never knew why the animation time for Follow-Up was increased so much for it.

OMG. I totally forgot about this. This is absolutely a gulf size difference between the two. I love both. And sometimes corpse blasting THAT hard with EM feels soooooo good, but it is definitely a big big thing. Like, with Claws, I can do a FU to finish off a thing and immediately focus at ranged to something. With EM, the only way for me not to corpse blast astronomically is to bone smasher spam. Cause Zapp, TF, and ET hit like a dump truck full of smaller dump trucks.

I'm biased towards Claws AND EM. Claws was my first 50 hero and EM was my first 50 villain. It was honestly the EM changes that brought me back. The thing is, as easily as EM can transition to ST DPS in gameplay away from pylons, so can Claws (might be easier, I just stop using Spin and go to Slash). And Claws probably has the best AOE of any scrapper primary. I've been tempted to do the Trapdoor run with the claws/bio AND em/bio, but I really am not motivated to learn to get efficient with that. EM's AOE has definitely been improved, but I suspect not enough to compete with Claws in that run. Claws would get two good damage ranged DPS ST attacks (Zapp and Focus) where EM would only get one (Zapp). That's pretty big for runners. I've done SL farms with both, and even though it wasn't numerically measured, I definitely could tell Claws was a lot faster. My claws/bio uses both -RES procs. Achilles in slash and fury in GC. The em/bio only has the fury in GC. If bone smasher, or TF, could take achilles that would be pretty ridiculous... What I'm trying to say is, just play what you like. EM is chonky with it's fist. Claws is fast stab stab stab.

I didn't even share them with him 😛 ...I think. To be fair, since you've already done the data entry, I am going to just copy your spreadsheet for the pylon thread. MOAR DATA

lol this sounds familiar

I finally ran a test I've been putting off a while. So, I simulated having a full stack of Soul Drain (x10) would be like DPS wise. Basically, would eat three 50% DMG (total of 150%) then punch a pylon. Scrapper DM/BIO 1:29 (10x Soul Drain/Degen/Zapp) 1:35 (10x Soul Drain/Reactive/Zapp) I'd get the time and add 7 seconds (to compensate for not having to cast soul drain). What I learned? You need to maximize Soul Drain (full 10x stack every time) to get the ST DPS performance of a lot of different sets with DM. This isn't even accounting for it's very poor AOE performance. Soul Drain definitely needs to be Auto-Hit, and give a minimum of 1x Stack if your target dies right before it goes off.

EM/FA Brute better DPS than EM/ElA brute. EM/ElA brute sturdy. EM/FA brute squishy. Sorry, I have ADHD and tend to brain vomit.

Maybe I wrote that wrong. I've never seen any kind of evidence (my own or someone else's) that gives Electric Armor the DPS edge over Fire Armor. Fiery Embrace and Burn are that good. Electric Armor is a freaking beast at staying alive though, and doing really good DPS. Might be my fav armor in terms of blending the two. It's not the best at either, but I don't know of a better balance. Hell, you can look at the time difference between my EM/FA and EM/ElM. It's almost a minute. Not to mention the FA does crazy AOE.

New average with Degen. Brute TW/ELA/MA 2:59 (Degen) I also started opening with BM RA AOD CB RA AOD FT RA wanting to get the -RES proc from CB. Only on opening on a new target do I do that. Since the normal chain has CB enough to refresh the proc as it is. During the last 30s of Ageless I start to use Whirling Smash in place of the last RA in the BM chain, since there doesn't seem to be enough recharge to get a fast-cast RA any more (I don't want to risk a slow-cast RA). I've got a EM/ElA/Gloom brute also, that does faster DPS times, but I like the EM/FA/Gloom brute more when I need to crank out scrapper level DPS and want to Brute. Both the ElA brutes are RES capped to SLFCE and DEF soft capped to SL.

I have a EM/ElA and EM/FA brute. I really enjoy them both. But yeah, a lot of the praise for EM is probably because it was bad for SO LONG. Like, absolutely last. One of my fav quotes from a dev is "EM excels neither at ST or AOE." My first 50 villain was a EM/ENA Brute. ENA got made AWESOME before shutdown. EM stayed dead in the water. But man...I remember that change to EM. What a sad day. I've always liked Total Focus. So I was pretty surprised I didn't latch on to Rad Melee more. I've definitely given it a real go, even had some help figuring out how to make it work really well for ST use, but it still didn't grab me. 😕 Good set, chonky feel. Wish I liked it more. Might give it another serious go.

Crab 0:50 (Degen) Brute EM/FA 1:50 (Degen) I got some pretty low times with the Crab (44s) and one weird run where pets died and got knocked back a few times that was 0:63s. But I threw Lore BP at one and the thing melts in 0:26s when I FORGET to turn on Hybrid. I did runs with the Ice/Cold corruptor and Degen is not a pylon DPS improvement for it. Pretty sure the amount of rains and other clicks give the debuff enough time to fall off. Whereas -RES is damage done. I dunno why Degen isn't as good a benefit to my DB/BIO as the other guys. I seriously thought it would be like Claws. I was getting times between 1:35-1:40. I swapped back to reactive and I was getting 1:20-1:25 again. Some runs at 1:15.

It really is a fun combo. And I'm a dumb who LOVES Ice Patch. It's simple hilarity. The only "issue" is if you Ice Patch then Shield Charge. Sometimes the total amount of Knockdown becomes Knockback. Either way, Ice Patch will keep you alive.

Big reason why I say a lot of the more popular sets are similar in performance. Hard to argue numbers. And I do build a lot of them very similar. But even then, other players putting out good numbers will show similar results.

Oh hey. I've done this exact combo before. It's actually in that DPS list I sent you. So, Summon Widow won't be a great little help DPS wise. That set IS a good mule. But I'm personally a fan of Boxing - Stupefy 6pc as a mule. Recharge and ranged defense. You definitely don't want to skip Greater Ice Sword. In fact, that's the best spot to put the ATO2. Skipping Ice Patch? Man, that's like a set defining power. And with a defense based set, that soft AOE control it gives will ABSOLUTELY be a life saver. Red Fortune 6pc gives ranged defense and the 5% recharge, Food for thought. Active Defense is up so often it won't need a recharge. If anything, an End Redux. Still won't notice it. I did a quick take on it. Replaced Moonbeam with Zapp. Dropped Frost and took Ball Lightning instead. It won't need Tactics with this much global ACC and the Kismet also works hard. You'll be able to do the best ST chain with this and still do ridiculous AOE. I really liked this combo when I did it before. Anyways, here's my take. Hopefully it keeps the things you MUST HAVE (also, my best IM/BIO times do NOT use frankenslotting, and they're the current best times). | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1396;674;1348;HEX;| |78DA4D93596F12511886CFC060651928AD2DDD29A5EDB00E4B5B13F70BAB06694D1| |3A2B775846321123A019AE89556FD015A4DFC03AE37FE2A6FB54D4CF442EBF831EF| |07ED84E139E75BDF39CBE6E3F5C0D75BFBD78412BCDE343B9DED4AB56D5A966C0FD| |D31BB7B6DB3297ACF10BD137DCFF6A66C4A6994AA12A3E8C0B12E1FCA56471A957A| |43366BFD69B8D4AACBB66C758DFE20B0B5BBDB3436A469355A3B3E6752B1A4AC69C| |EF06663A7DE2547A81F5593ED4EBD61456E588DAA51E99ACD473D117BDB9B66A72B| |DB4F2648DC02BD199DFE949E5CDB23DEAA42145431FC8AF91A1C3F00936FC054C2E| |DD0A70D7269A238B640100C4688B3AAC814119B3D16CEDC4F390AF75342887571AE| |CB0FAA01A606FAB8668072DDC875B96FD3405745EC2AFAE44A981BF43D1E81FA9E2| |F2E27EFCC7BE607F0EC47E627D0F719CCE9D834CA15433142C12B34EAE9659B976D| |E314E4870EC53FC6DACA6E47C702F934F66969C407FBA45A21E7E36D11E25A05EA1| |966BD6189F51DB9CF34C1730F9855DE8F1A18A27AA3E8254659479CFA8FB1DEB1AC| |706C0AD922DC23F21271134F99CFC0D83EB8F81CD45F8045D237C9FB3599C63A4DE| |92E47FB54029C493253E05C0971C3A46F9AF54DB33E376999E53D9C5D836D2ECF5C| |0557A867147AD5E815D49ABF8CDAF3179817C1D82530ACE13CF7742E089CB9F81FE| |4C6FF328FC1C57F4C1BFC46E14BFC8D4B05D896B3A8BB6C3073A09E6766D0E37740| |88046B4D9C872F5964AE80A955E61AA8D21AA4790DD2BC2E19BE03193EEB618A313| |8C6E018E3103D8D9FE008C5E4797DF37C9E6654C18F4D3F7A44541DDC527BE3B497| |4FC796CA6EB2294EC677DFE08E0A85A30E4F6C2E25C677FA1E74E5EE823F4EE7259| |0777462732BEFB0B6D903BE6FBF708EF34760AFB95D1EA531CB2DA7E80321CDFE0F| |6C61C242| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

I've been busy. All these times are an average of 10+ runs. Hybrid is NOT turned on. No Lore is used. T4 Muscle and Ageless. Scrapper EM/BIO 1:19 (Degen/Zapp) Scrapper CLAWS/BIO 1:23 (Degen/Zapp) Scrapper WM/BIO 1:27 (Degen/Zapp) Scrapper Kat/BIO 1:28 (Degen/Zapp) Scrapper IM/BIO 1:28 (Degen/Zapp) Scrapper TW/BIO 1:29 (Degen/MA) Claws shocked the hell out of me. It was wildly consistent. Kat is SUPER fast. War Mace is one cool chunky monkey. Ice Melee is deceiving as hell due to the DOT on Freezing Touch so it feels really streaky. Titan Weapons is still Titan Weapons. I've got my Crab, Ice/Cold corruptor, and EM/FA brute to run again. Degen is noticeably better pylon DPS. Can't argue that, numbers don't lie.

So I'm in the process of building Degen for my dudes. Completed it on my EM/BIo first. This time is an average. Also, my play has gotten better. EM/BIO/ZAPP T4 Degen T4 Muscle T4 Ageless 1:19 And here is one I did for fun with Assault running. 1:01 I had a 1:06 for my average runs. I almost died on that one because ET kept critting and I was using it so much.

It's actually really squishy. It's because of the fact it has a few very smart offensive boosts that allow you to kill things faster than they can kill you. Like, with other secondaries I can normally ride out a hit taking me to 3/4 or 1/2 bar HP for a little. I might be fine. With Bio? IF I get that much a warning I'm scrambling to hit my heal, pop greens, or run out. Normally all of that. It's pretty normal to go from full to needing to hosp with the way I play on a bio without enough warning to do anything. That's why I prioritize Defense over Resistance when building, well, any of my builds. No damage > some damage. It works by having OK HP/s and END/s. It gets a pretty good heal that doesn't require enemies around. It also gets a good heal that is better the more enemies it hits. It also has a T9 that is stronger with the more enemies it hits. The T9 does an insta-heal and drastically increases your HP/s and END/s for a set duration. It has OK resistance out of the box, you saw that. And it has good defense to fire/cold out of the box. It has three different "adaptations". They operate just like their title says. Offensive, defensive, and efficient. Some powers operate slightly different based on your adaptation at the time. Personally, I just sit in offensive. I don't see enough value with defensive and efficient to toggle over to them. Maybe Defensive on a Bio/Staff tanker. Staff has a defensive stance that will stack with it.

This is a really fun combination to boot. I've gotten times between :26s-:36s when lore is popped, so I'm pretty sure your pets were just being weird on that one. And I do BP also. Like, the pylon's HP doesn't move at a crazy speed then all of a sudden it just straight disappears. It's like -RES works or something 😄

I wanna see someone do Ice/Fire on a scrapper. I had a Fire/Ice tanker before ED I would PL/Farm with and the combination of Ice Patch and Burn was pretty hilarious.

Damn, I thought I had some streaky runs in the 1:20s. Having a run in the 1:10s would throw me way off. I've only had runs dip in to the 1:20s with my TW/BIO about a handful of times. And I've done a lot of runs finding a chain that works for me, I don't deviate from my chain, well for the most part. Not sure how much I'd like trying to be reactionary with a procced CB and crit strikes. Old habit from the old TW chain and WoW? I did have a run with my EM/BIO that was 1:05 (kanil remembers that one) that I immediately tossed cause the RNG was wayyyy to good on that one. It was just TF-ET (crit)-snipe-ET-TF-ET (crit) repeat. It was just dumb.

If there is someone to listen to about making a tanky character in this game, it's that dude. I remember he was looking at making a character to fit his needs and tried DB/BIO first. He really O_O the damage, but db/bio just didn't have the survivability. Kat/Bio has a really neat chain. It feels fast and chunky and the DPS is DEFINITELY there. Kanil can attest to my frustration figuring out a good chain for it, but once I did I went "OK, this thing really cooks".

Here's the chain I did to get my post-nerf average: BM-(Momentum start)RA-AoD-FT-RA-AoD-FT-RA(Momentum end)-CB-(Momentum start)AoD-FT-RA-AoD{Momentum end)-CB-(Momentum start)FT-AoD-BM Repeat Had ATO2 in Rend Armor and would open the fight with Melt Armor.

EM, DB, and KAT are your best DPS performers in that order (I mention these because you did earlier). The difference with them really isn't that much at the top end. All three sets feel pretty different. DB and KAT do a good job of looking fairly different play wise despite both having swords. And swords are pretty cool aesthetics to me. I will give Kat a nod for more survivability due to Divine Avalanche. I just take it as a set mule for a LOTG but I've found myself using it more than I expected to help alleviate alphas. TW does not suck. It just got brought in line DPS wise with most of the other sets and it's best attack chain was massively simplified. There really aren't any primaries that suck. It's just Electrical Melee and Staff Fighting are not gonna be able to do this. So, TW is still good (really good actually) but it's AOE was noticeably nerfed. DM/BIO is a lot of fun. I actually used this one to solo the LRSF and LGTF. The DPS isn't as high as the other sets with one stack of soul drain, but it is fun to play. If you can leverage soul drain to stay pretty stacked, it starts cranking out some pretty good numbers. If I get off my lazy ass and simulate that with reds on a pylon I'd have a better idea.

Honestly, no secondary stands out to me as long as it can hit that baseline survivability. And it really depends on the player and their playstyle at that point. I'd really only say Regen cause you have to spend so much time managing the secondary to live, as opposed to attacking (DPS for this is VERY important). Inspirations definitely cover a lot of ground in terms of living (purples and oranges FTW) and even getting more DMG. Base temps are sooooooper cheap too (20% recharge is a chaos theorem, kinetic weapon, and some other common salvage...that's it, and it lasts an hour). Envenomed Dagger is also cheap AF at the P2W vendor if people think they need the extra -REG, or just want to make it easier. Same thing with Recovery Serum.