Struggling to find a scrapper I like

[Mikewho]

Hello Scrapper folks! I have tried out 4 or 5 scrappers now and am really struggling to find one that fits my playstyle/needs. I am hoping you may be able to help me? I play almost exclusively end-game content. Budget isn't a factor. Here's what I'm looking for:

 

- Has a taunt aura (I suppose this limits me to Bio, Invuln, Rad, or Shield)

- Has either ~58.5 defense to S/L, or ~58.5 defense to Melee/Aoe (it's fine for ranged to be less).

- Has either enough resistance or defense to be OK against Psi and energy damage.

- Can kill a pylon in 3:45 or better (this is just a metric for me to say that it has good single target damage).

- I don't care about AOE damage for this build.

 

I realize some of these are pretty high wishes, and maybe that means I won't be able to find what I'm looking for.

 

Some builds I've tried that have fallen short in one or more of these include:

Dark/Shield

Savage/Shield

TW/Bio

TW/Invuln

TW/Rad

But maybe I just didn't have the right build for them. Any help is appreciated!

[Riverdusk]

Probably tough to get to 58.5 s/l defense with it, without some trickery, but just to note, Willpower also has a taunt aura.  The taunt aura is considered a weak one, but it is enough in my experience unless you are trying to actually pull aggro off of others with their own taunts.  As a scrapper I just want it good enough to keep things from running off every time their health gets low and it works for that.

 

Not sure why dark/shield doesn't work for you, seems like it could hit all the marks (except maybe the rare non-positional psi), unless you just didn't care for the "feel" of the combo.  Going back to WP, it is one of your rare ones that does have some specific psi defense/resistance built in.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Riverdusk

[Mikewho]

I had no idea scrapper WP has taunt in the aura, thanks! That definitely gives me some food for thought. 😀

 

Dark/shield was very close. It met all the things I care about except I couldn't get the single target damage high enough (assuming only 1 target). Do you have a build you think could down a pylon in 3:45 or less? Mine was taking 6-8 minutes.

[Riverdusk]

Don't really have a build handy, but going by the Kaeladin's dps spreadsheets Dark Melee with even just 1 target in soul drain is near the top of scrapper ST dps if you have enough recharge to keep soul drain up most/all of the time and are using the ideal attack chain.  Add in the bonus damage of shield and if it can't do it, not sure what else can.  DM/Bio would probably be the one even better with both its damage bonus and its -regen.  I'd definitely give the nod to TW/Bio and DM/Bio as the ultimate melee AV (or pylon) killers.  But then bio has a much tougher time getting the defense you are asking for.  

 

 

Oh, one hint, you might try Leviathan mastery as your epic pool choice.  Have heard Water Spout helps a good deal against AV's/Pylons.  Can also put an achilles heel -res proc in it.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Riverdusk

[Mikewho]

Bio isn’t really an option as it can’t reach the defense levels needed without huge sacrifice. I haven’t been able to find a build for dark shield that both reaches the defense I want and also can do fast enough DPS. It seems to be either or. The builds I’ve seen people use in the pylon thread and elsewhere tend to just go for the 45 defense level which gives a lot more flexibility for recharge, damage, and incarnates. I’m starting to experiment with an invuln build that might meet my needs though. The problem previously was the psi hole, but enough impervium armor uniques might make that manageable.

 

Ps. I appreciate all the ideas

[Latex]

I'm surprised /Bio isn't satisfying to you, the holes it has in Defenses are covered by Regen/Absorbs (Absorbs being Overpowered if you asked me).

 

Layering Defense always seemed better than anything else out there from my experience and Bio has the best layering of any Secondary.

DEF > RES > Absorb > Regen/HP - Thats 4 layers to defeat before you start taking hits.

[Mikewho]

23 minutes ago, Latex said:

I'm surprised /Bio isn't satisfying to you, the holes it has in Defenses are covered by Regen/Absorbs (Absorbs being Overpowered if you asked me).

 

Layering Defense always seemed better than anything else out there from my experience and Bio has the best layering of any Secondary.

DEF > RES > Absorb > Regen/HP - Thats 4 layers to defeat before you start taking hits.

For most content I agree. But I tend to do weird stuff on very small teams. Sometimes you just really need enough defense to avoid that mag 30 stun.

[Haijinx]

With those Requirements you are basically looking at a Brute.

 

SR or EnA 

 

If the defense requirement was relaxed you could do invul or WP scrapper, maybe with Shadow Meld as a helper.

 

SR and EnA for scrappers don't have taunt auras and those are the only sets you can realistically get those numbers with.

 

====

A tanker could do it of course probably ICE or Shield or Super Easy with SR. 

 

 

 

 

[Xyzor]

What was your attack chain on the DM/SD? If it included Shadow Maul, that's your problem.

[Andferne]

54 minutes ago, Xyzor said:

What was your attack chain on the DM/SD? If it included Shadow Maul, that's your problem.

I second this. If it is not your optimal attach chain then it is something within the build you were running. A DM/SD scrapper should meet and exceed your requirements.

[Mikewho]

2 hours ago, Xyzor said:

What was your attack chain on the DM/SD? If it included Shadow Maul, that's your problem.

I use MG->Smite->Siphon Life->Smite

[Mikewho]

Here's the build I'm using. Advice is welcome! Though any changes must keep the defense levels mentioned:

 

Scrapper - Dark Melee - Shield Defense.mxd

[Sovera]

On 12/12/2019 at 4:04 PM, Kaylin said:

Hello Scrapper folks! I have tried out 4 or 5 scrappers now and am really struggling to find one that fits my playstyle/needs. I am hoping you may be able to help me? I play almost exclusively end-game content. Budget isn't a factor. Here's what I'm looking for:

 

- Has a taunt aura (I suppose this limits me to Bio, Invuln, Rad, or Shield)

- Has either ~58.5 defense to S/L, or ~58.5 defense to Melee/Aoe (it's fine for ranged to be less).

- Has either enough resistance or defense to be OK against Psi and energy damage.

- Can kill a pylon in 3:45 or better (this is just a metric for me to say that it has good single target damage).

- I don't care about AOE damage for this build.

 

I realize some of these are pretty high wishes, and maybe that means I won't be able to find what I'm looking for.

 

Some builds I've tried that have fallen short in one or more of these include:

Dark/Shield

Savage/Shield

TW/Bio

TW/Invuln

TW/Rad

But maybe I just didn't have the right build for them. Any help is appreciated!

 

As someone chipped in you're not going to get that on a /Bio and neither are you on a resist based set, so forget /Rad and /Elec and etc. You'll be wanting Super Reflexes for that but any content that requires 58% defense will be creaming a SR, IMO. It lacks a self heal so you'll be needing to rely on insps. /Shield can also put up some good numbers, but again, no self heal so you'll be relying on insps or Aid-Self.

 

So I say go back down to accepting 40% across the board then rely on Barrier's 5% to softcap for normal content, and rely on regen and absorb of /Bio and CC for content above that. Once you are at 45% you can eat a small purple and be at 57%. You don't even need to do that for each and every fight (I've done incarnate content on 45% characters and did not notice a difference between it and other content), just for the ones you see might be a bit tough, or you know will spawn an ambush, or involve an AV and you want to feel safe.

 

For extreme solo or hard content as you are saying you do you have three choice primaries:

 

A) Radiation. Pretty decent AoE and a built-in heal that makes the difference in a long fight. As a Scrapper I got 300 HP heals on a 2000 HP pool, and it goes off a LOT. Also the damage is not commonly resisted. I can't stomach the animations any longer so I don't play one but the built-in heal is tremendous. My Rad/Bio soloed a pylon in 1:45 minutes without incarnate clickies or pets and did not even have to heal itself since Radiation Siphon did everything.

 

B) War Mace. Smash resisting enemies are a huge pain. I did Manticore yesterday and my biggest attack went from 300-ish damage to 120 damage on the last boss. But the damage outside of that last boss is tremendous. And, for solo or extreme cases, the built in CC is wtbbbqsauce. Said Manticore TF seldomly had Paragon Protectors activating their T9 since War Mace kept the NPCs knocked to the ground or flung into the air until they died. Floating above a pack of enemies Crowd Control acts like a PbAoE instead of a cone and does tremendous damage plus knocks everything on their ass. It's common to aproach a spawn, use Clobber, Shatter while waiting for the mobs to wake and come rush me, then Build-Up + Crowd Control killing all the minions. That's a lot of incoming damage immediately negated. I can do a chain of Whirlwind Mace (with the KD proc) and Crowd Control near gapless (the gap is good for Clobber to activate the scrapper ATO crit proc) for AoE moments and the enemies just keep on bouncing. I have not tested mine against a Pylon but someone did and also got under 2 minutes with it.

 

C) Dark melee. I would never recommend this usually since it has no AoE and CoH is an AoE game, but since you said you don't care about AoE then Dark Melee has a strong single target damage plus the -ToHit will boost up the 45% defense to the 58% you wanted just by passively attacking. It also has a built-in heal though not as good as Radiation Siphon IMO.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Sovera

[Haijinx]

You could use Kat or BS to get the defense numbers I suppose which would open up maybe Shield (BS only) and Invul.   But only to Melee.  or Lethal

 

Not Melee *and* AOE.  Also not any other types.

 

TW could sort of do similar.  But only to smashing and melee.  But the build is tighter since TW is such a hog, will make it harder to build super high def.   Also it isnt as quick as Parry or DA. 

 

Also Staff, much like Kat or BS but smashing I believe.   

 

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Haijinx

[Mikewho]

Thanks for all the help everyone. I've gotten some good ideas from you all and will be testing out some builds. Appreciate it!