Fire Armor vs. Bio Armor

[ccrob00]

Sorry I am currently on my iPhone.

 

I recently created and slotted a War Mace/Fire Armor Scrapper. The build hits really hard. Super fun. The one problem I have with the build is endurance. It is manageable with Incarnates though.

 

I've been reading through the forums and saw that Bio Armor is really good. I'm debating on rerolling as a WM/Bio Scrapper and just transfer the IOs over to the new toon. Is Bio really that much more superior to Fire Armor? 

 

I've never tried Bio Armor and has always been a set I've considered running. The adaption ability is really interesting especially the Offensive Adaption. I do not mind rerolling and creating a new toon. Should I?

 

Thank You!

[DocRadio]

16 minutes ago, ccrob00 said:

Sorry I am currently on my iPhone.

 

I recently created and slotted a War Mace/Fire Armor Scrapper. The build hits really hard. Super fun. The one problem I have with the build is endurance. It is manageable with Incarnates though.

 

I've been reading through the forums and saw that Bio Armor is really good. I'm debating on rerolling as a WM/Bio Scrapper and just transfer the IOs over to the new toon. Is Bio really that much more superior to Fire Armor? 

 

I've never tried Bio Armor and has always been a set I've considered running. The adaption ability is really interesting especially the Offensive Adaption. I do not mind rerolling and creating a new toon. Should I?

 

Thank You!

Why not have both? I mean, I get it if you don't have time, but why strip the build you've invested so much time in? Heck even consider a different primary. You might find something else you love. Say BattleAxe/Bio. 

 

As to your question. The two sets function really differently. When it comes to survivability Bio takes the cake. But fire of course gives you additional damage. Enough to offset the survivability of bio? Not in my opinion. It really will come down to personal preference. I've always considered /Fire to be a tad squish myself. But then again with scrapper damage you don't necessarily have to be that durable.

[Frosticus]

if you build a fire armor with decent defense and make sure to get  close to 100% slow/ -rech resist there isnt much that can take you down. 

 

bio armor at a glance doesn't look as hardy but it is just a completely different approach. fire is reactive and bio is proactive. Once you get good at knowing when to use the bio tools the set is unbelievably tough. 

 

I've played both a lot. I think over time the extra offense of adaptation and the -res aura along with the damage aura add more damage than FE And the damage aura of fire. Although bu+FE is still fantastic. 

[nihilii]

Strictly from a performance standpoint, I find it hard to pick /fire on a scrapper over /bio.

On /fire scrappers things run everywhere, and between Blazing Aura and Burn that's a lot of potential damage wasted.

/bio has a strong Taunt aura, so everything stays glued to you.

As mentioned, the /bio tools give you (slightly) more damage than the /fire tools. That's in the ideal scenario where things don't run from you. In practice, /bio widens the gap even further in any situation where you don't have a teammate to hold the aggro for you - and teammates will never hold the aggro as efficiently for your optimal damage rotation as you would.

There's nothing WRONG with /fire, mind you. BU+FE is indeed a sight to behold.

 

But /bio is just crazy good. In fact, I could rewrite the first sentence of my post as "strictly from a performance standpoint, I find it hard to pick ANYTHING on a scrapper over /bio".

I'd definitely give WM/bio a shot. Maybe don't strip your previous toon so you can have a fair comparison and decide which one you like most.

 

[Erydanus]

On ‎12‎/‎1‎/‎2019 at 3:01 AM, ccrob00 said:

The one problem I have with the build is endurance. It is manageable with Incarnates though.

 

…

 

I'm debating on rerolling as a WM/Bio Scrapper and just transfer the IOs over to the new toon. Is Bio really that much more superior to Fire Armor? 

If you're already 50 I see no reason to gut one character to make another. Sure just roll another alt! You like mace? Sure just use mace again! It's not like I haven't thought about rolling characters who use Psionic Melee in every variation that it appears in...

 

That said I'm concerned you were having such end problems. Sometimes it's not the set it's how you play and how you slot the build. Fiery Aura isn't known as an end hog like Dark is, and it even has CONSUME so changing secondaries may not be the problem. It may be mace that's the problem and it does have some heavy hitting but expensive attacks, so I think it's worth talking about your end problems.  I just spent a long time talking about slotting and how to manage end costs for an elec/elec scrapper and maybe some of the info would be helpful to you as well:

 

 

But the TLDR is I bet you need to slot end reducers into more of your attacks, especially the AoE attacks and the heavy hitters. What I am guessing you did was something like 1 acc, 3 dmg, 2 recharge (or the set equivalent) in most of those big heavy hitters so you ended up burning through your end quickly and strained the build. If you took an Alpha that put an end reducer in every attack like Cardiac, that basically tells you: you should have had an end reducer in all of them all along, and the alpha should have boosted something else (damage, recharge, etc.). 

[Extor Prime]

Bio has taunt aura, Fire has "eek run away" aura.  Enemies stick to my rad/bio scrapper like I am a tank or something. So that's a big one.

 

Bio is a bit clicky though. It's not "set and forget" set, if you want maximum performance and survivability you have to keep an eye on your two cooldowns (AC and PA) and remember to be in appropriate adaptations depending on what is going on on the field. It's still simple, but you can't just let it do its thing and just go through your attack chain rotation.