Do Katana and Super Reflexes work well together?

[TheGentlemanGhostronaut]

Do Katana and Super Reflexes work well together?

 

If not, what goes well with Katana?  My theme is a cyborg samurai!

[Redlynne]

9 hours ago, TheGentlemanGhostronaut said:

Do Katana and Super Reflexes work well together?

Yes ... but ...

 

The point of synergy between the two powersets is the Parry-ish power in Katana (I forget the name of it offhand) that adds Defense (versus Smashing/Lethal if memory serves) and ... that's about it.  It's better than nothing, granted, but it's not a whole lot.  Super Reflexes is a LATE blooming powerset for Scrappers, where you basically need to be getting up into your 40s before you can start bringing it ALL together into a cohesive whole of powers and slots.

10 hours ago, TheGentlemanGhostronaut said:

If not, what goes well with Katana?  My theme is a cyborg samurai!

Honestly?  I'd say go Katana/Willpower for that, where you "get stronger/better" the more enemies you have around you.  VERY Scrapperlock prone(!) without relying on a Rage/Fury mechanic to get the job done.

[Werner]

I agree with "yes but".

 

The defensive attack is Divine Avalanche, and it's melee/lethal defense, so you'll soft cap melee defense very early. That's always nice, and should smooth out the leveling process. But in an end-game IO'd and incarnated build, where Super Reflexes can easily get incarnate soft-capped defense (59%) to all positions with extremely high defense debuff resists, that defensive synergy drops by the wayside.

 

I'll second Katana/Willpower as long as you don't get hung up on "Willpower" not sounding like a cyborg. Easy to play, easy to level, gives up nothing at the top end. That would be my go-to recommendation for Katana.

 

My personal favorite is Katana/Dark though. I've leveled that combo as a Scrapper to 50, a Brute to 50, and another Brute to 44. Third time's the charm? Not as easy to play. Endurance sucks hard while leveling. But it's so nice when it's all done. Other than defense debuffs. Those are your weakness. About your only weakness once you have a high-end end-game build, but a major one.

 

Maybe that's why I'm leveling up a Street Justice/Super Reflexes right now. We hatesss defensse debuffss, yesss we do.

[Redlynne]

19 hours ago, TheGentlemanGhostronaut said:

My theme is a cyborg samurai!

On second thought, you might want to go Dual Blades/Willpower instead of Katana/Willpower, so as to use the Dual Blades combo system for greater synergies than what you'd be able to get out of Katana alone.  If memory serves, you'd be able to do a Katana/Wakazashi combo for the blades themselves (although the draw animation will almost certainly be a cross-draw instead of a 2 swords on one side like a "proper" Samurai).  Under the circumstances of being a cyborg, I'm thinking that Dual Blades/Willpower would be the superior option for you.

[Generator]

If we're going to suggest alternatives for the defensive set, I'll throw the suggestion in for Bio armor. If you choose one of the minimal FX versions it's not too big a stretch to flavor it as some sort of adaptive nanite sort of thing.

[Sovera]

2 hours ago, Werner said:

I agree with "yes but".

 

The defensive attack is Divine Avalanche, and it's melee/lethal defense, so you'll soft cap melee defense very early. That's always nice, and should smooth out the leveling process. But in an end-game IO'd and incarnated build, where Super Reflexes can easily get incarnate soft-capped defense (59%) to all positions with extremely high defense debuff resists, that defensive synergy drops by the wayside.

 

I'll second Katana/Willpower as long as you don't get hung up on "Willpower" not sounding like a cyborg. Easy to play, easy to level, gives up nothing at the top end. That would be my go-to recommendation for Katana.

 

My personal favorite is Katana/Dark though. I've leveled that combo as a Scrapper to 50, a Brute to 50, and another Brute to 44. Third time's the charm? Not as easy to play. Endurance sucks hard while leveling. But it's so nice when it's all done. Other than defense debuffs. Those are your weakness. About your only weakness once you have a high-end end-game build, but a major one.

 

Maybe that's why I'm leveling up a Street Justice/Super Reflexes right now. We hatesss defensse debuffss, yesss we do.

I actually surprised me today when I thought of looking at the DDR in /Bio to find it has zero, according to HD. No wonder Cimerorans eat my /Bio characters alive. /Shield has 65% when I checked. I definitely will level a DM/Shield since the lack of heal in /Shield is covered by Siphon Life.

[ChocolateMercenary]

Katana, much like Dark Melee, improves every set it can be used with. The synergy isn't always the greatest, but Katana is NEVER a bad choice. You'll get more mileage out of pairing with a resist or regen set, but have fun.

[Murcielago]

Does a bear poop in the woods?

[Haijinx]

9 hours ago, Murcielago said:

Does a bear poop in the woods?

If no one is there to hear it fall?

[CaptainLupis]

9 hours ago, Murcielago said:

Does a bear poop in the woods?

Depends whether it's a polar bear or not.

 

As for katana/SR yes it will work just fine. It might not be the best damage/mitigation combo going, but it will be pretty solid.

[Without_Pause]

I'll point out /ea does exists. While it is the second least used for scrappers, it is the most used for stalkers(likely PvP), and I have a /ea stalker with it and even with common IOs I like it quite a bit. Theme wise it works for a cyborg and its defense isn't on the level of /sr so Kat can still be useful for it once you pimp out the build. 

[Gauntlet_Prime]

Might i suggest Kat/Nin.  I have a Kat/Nin scrapper and its a good bag of tricks with good thematic effects.  Stacking ninja runs for super fast cyborg parkour.  Basically free stealth for adaptive camouflage.  Clicky heal and recovery powers for Self repair and back up power systems.  It is just a good combo for plain ol fun.

 

Might not be the most min/maxed combination but it is definitely a fun time.

[Obus Form]

A little more direct to you@TheGentlemanGhostronaut, outside of thematic flavour or RP reasons, /Super Reflexes is one of the lowest performing sets.  If you expect to stay alive responsibly in an iTrial, you'll need a resist based power set a long the lines of /Dark Armour or Radiation Amror.  If you're new to the game (i assume from your post count), perhaps a middle of the ground power set like /Energy Aura will be more suitable because it has Defence, Resist, a nice self heal, endurance recovery, and a little recharge boost.

[Werner]

9 hours ago, Obus Form said:

.../Super Reflexes is one of the lowest performing sets.  If you expect to stay alive responsibly in an iTrial, you'll need a resist based power set a long the lines of /Dark Armour...

Not that I'd ever try to talk anyone out of my favorite secondary, Dark Armor, but...

 

OK, I've maybe run a dozen iTrials ever, not many more task forces than that, and my own Super Reflexes is only level 30 right now and a Brute, so please take my opinion with a huge grain of salt. But I think Super Reflexes may be underrated for incarnate content. It's simple to incarnate soft cap defense, and it has huge defense debuff resistance. My planned build is sitting at 45% smashing/lethal resist, 39% energy/negative, 35% fire/cold. On top of that there's I think 37% scaling resistance - 30% from the Secondary, 7% from the IO? You'd only see that top end the moment before you eat dirt, but I'd consider 37% scaling the rough equivalent of 18% fixed, so let's call that 63% smashing/lethal, 57% energy/negative, 53% fire/cold. I'm planning Melee Core, which situationally pushes that past Scrapper hard caps for a couple minutes. I'm planning on Rebirth, but you'll probably see teammates with Barrier, which is also going to situationally bump up that resistance. And it's getting high enough that orange inspirations will start to make a meaningful difference as well. So in the modern game, I think you can expect rather high resistance on a top end Super Reflexes running top end content.

 

In the current game, I think the major weakness of Super Reflexes is more likely to be the lack of a self heal than a lack of damage resistance. I'm hoping Rebirth will address that weakness. Long cooldown, though, so we'll see. Less of a concern on a big team, probably.

 

My only real data point is a friend running roughly the same build as I'm going to use for myself. And he does seems squishier on +4x8 incarnate arcs than I remember my Katana/Dark Scrapper being. Not squishy mind you, but squishier. But maybe I have rose-colored memories of my own survivability, plus he's a "newbie" - only started playing when Homecoming appeared, and is more into first person shooters than MMOs. He's been unable to report what's killed him the few times he's died.

[Zeraphia]

I want to point out a weakness Katana has in its native damage type is lethal damage. Lethal damage is the most commonly resisted type of damage across the entire game. "Lethal damage is the most resisted damage type across the board, with Crey Tanks, Malta Mechs, Council Robots having 50% Lethal resistance. Circle of Thorns Ghosts, Devouring Earth Rock monsters, and Council werewolves have 40 to 35% resistance." You can work against it by adding -res procs in its powers fairly easily given it has a -def inherent and AoE, that said, some missions and battles will be a real slog. This isn't me trying to dissuade you from choosing it, just bringing awareness as to a weakness it has.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2020 by 33053222

[Zeraphia]

16 minutes ago, Werner said:

My planned build is sitting at 45% smashing/lethal resist, 39% energy/negative, 35% fire/cold. On top of that there's I think 37% scaling resistance - 30% from the Secondary, 7% from the IO? You'd only see that top end the moment before you eat dirt, but I'd consider 37% scaling the rough equivalent of 18% fixed, so let's call that 63% smashing/lethal, 57% energy/negative, 53% fire/cold.

I am not trying to be rude to you, but I am going to say I disagree with this assertion. In more extreme content, the potential for outright oneshots is very high. Your initial resistance, especially energy, can indeed get you killed very quickly and the damage may come at you so hard you don't get the scaling bonus. Is it all the time? No. Is scaling useless? No. It just has certain limitations when we speak of iTrials and extreme situations where base attacks are doing upwards of 2000+ damage.

[Sovera]

When I tested a /SR (and (/EA) in a Comicon I was disappointed at how they got eaten alive. Aid Self was unable to cope up. /Bio didn't even care and I'm going to assume that Dark Armor is very much the same.

 

The lack of resistances the numerical one above me mentions is correct, IMO, having resistances kick in only at half HP and lower is no way to keep up.

 

Now that said farm maps in particular the Comic Con one do not reproduce normal game play situations and as thus should not be used as a metric.

[Redlynne]

20 minutes ago, Sovera said:

When I tested a /SR (and (/EA) in a Comicon I was disappointed at how they got eaten alive. Aid Self was unable to cope up.

It is perfectly possible to make a Defense build that fails miserably at coping with large quantities of aggro.  That's more dependent upon build than we're often comfortable accepting.

[Obus Form]

20 minutes ago, Werner said:

Not that I'd ever try to talk anyone out of my favorite secondary, Dark Armor, but...

 

OK, I've maybe run a dozen iTrials ever, not many more task forces than that, and my own Super Reflexes is only level 30 right now and a Brute, so please take my opinion with a huge grain of salt. But I think Super Reflexes may be underrated for incarnate content. It's simple to incarnate soft cap defense, and it has huge defense debuff resistance. My planned build is sitting at 45% smashing/lethal resist, 39% energy/negative, 35% fire/cold. On top of that there's I think 37% scaling resistance - 30% from the Secondary, 7% from the IO? You'd only see that top end the moment before you eat dirt, but I'd consider 37% scaling the rough equivalent of 18% fixed, so let's call that 63% smashing/lethal, 57% energy/negative, 53% fire/cold. I'm planning Melee Core, which situationally pushes that past Scrapper hard caps for a couple minutes. I'm planning on Rebirth, but you'll probably see teammates with Barrier, which is also going to situationally bump up that resistance. And it's getting high enough that orange inspirations will start to make a meaningful difference as well. So in the modern game, I think you can expect rather high resistance on a top end Super Reflexes running top end content.

 

In the current game, I think the major weakness of Super Reflexes is more likely to be the lack of a self heal than a lack of damage resistance. I'm hoping Rebirth will address that weakness. Long cooldown, though, so we'll see. Less of a concern on a big team, probably.

 

My only real data point is a friend running roughly the same build as I'm going to use for myself. And he does seems squishier on +4x8 incarnate arcs than I remember my Katana/Dark Scrapper being. Not squishy mind you, but squishier. But maybe I have rose-colored memories of my own survivability, plus he's a "newbie" - only started playing when Homecoming appeared, and is more into first person shooters than MMOs. He's been unable to report what's killed him the few times he's died.

It's not that SR isn't viable, it's that it doesn't mitigate risks like other resist based sets.

 

At the level of iTrials an AV can 2 shot blasters (technically an AV can 1 shot them, but outside obvious moves like Maurader's Nova Fist the game prevents 1 shotting you while you are at 100% HP). 

 

It is my understanding, from a hardcore (life draining, gf breaking) WoW raiding background, that responsible solo performance leads into "Responsible" performance on a team while iTrial raiding.  "Responsible" = Staying alive + Maximizing the role of your AT.  Using "Responsible" as a bench mark for performance I conjecture that, in the most hardcore badging/raiding guilds, a "Responsible Scrapper" = Staying alive (Avoiding damage altogether then Defense + Resist +Self heal) + Maximizing DPS.  Staying Alive + High DPS allows for those difficult badges that require 3 AVs to be killed within 5 seconds of each other at an iTrial level.

 

Then there is Risk Mitigation.  What happens when your Barrier starts running low and nobody randomly fires one?  What happens when Melee Core runs out (and honestly, as a Scrapper looking to maximize DPS, i'd take the Double Hit or + Dmg power instead)?  Who would be healed first when you are low HP and so is the tank because of unavoidable damage?

 

There's a great post about Layered Defense, if someone can link it, please do.

 

While /SR can achieve 63% S/L and 57% E/NE resist at low HP, /Dark Armour and other resist based sets can achieve the same level of Resist at 100%.  Therefore, running around at levels of HP is a risk that could potentially allow you to die, thus preventing enough DPS to kill 3 AVs within 5 seconds of each other. 

 

TLDR: /SR is certainly viable in end game, but it's level of resists finally match Resist-based powersets only when it has low HP.  This is an unnecessary risk compounded by lacking a self heal.  Scrappers with lower HP pools than Brutes/Tanks are therefore at a higher risk of dying when faced with the same level of damage.  Death --> No DPS --> You may not kill 3 AVs within 5 seconds of each other.

 

 

 

[Obus Form]

Without diverging this post into a armor set debate, in the interest of the OP @TheGentlemanGhostronaut, I honestly recommend Energy Aura will be a good mix of everything that allows mistakes and learning. It has everything (defense, resist, heals, end recovery) that is a balance of preventive (defense and resist) and active (self heal click, end gain click) play to learn the game mechanics of staying alive...which is quite necessary to understand the nuance of scrapping in melee range when one goes into iTrials.  Energy Aura also allows for cheaper builds (i assume the OP doesn't have a bank) because it easily hits defence cap and does not require nuanced understanding of layering defences (because it has everything already).

 

Edited March 11, 2020 by Obus Form

[hejtmane]

On 3/9/2020 at 1:43 PM, Without_Pause said:

I'll point out /ea does exists. While it is the second least used for scrappers, it is the most used for stalkers(likely PvP), and I have a /ea stalker with it and even with common IOs I like it quite a bit. Theme wise it works for a cyborg and its defense isn't on the level of /sr so Kat can still be useful for it once you pimp out the build. 

On old live I loved my db/ea it is a good set and I preferred it over /sr because I got at least a weak taunt aura in the set

Edited March 11, 2020 by hejtmane

[Doomguide2005]

Disclaimer I haven't done any I-trials since live so maybe I'd see some issues that I didn't see then but:

 

My SR scrapper would still be standing after taking a 2000 damage hit, health would in fact still be triple digit.  Rebirth is a thing and her regen without Rebrth is over 30/sec.  Inspires are also a thing as is combining to get useful ones.  Maybe SR isn't top dog but it is plenty capable of surviving and dishing it out in I-trials quite respectably.

Edited March 11, 2020 by Doomguide2005

[SwitchFade]

Katana and SR go great together. The beauty of the two is Kat is fast recharging, needing no hasten and SR has clickie mez, so your autofire skill is used for mez, not hasten. SR also has +recharge and +speed.

 

You have two paths, pre and post 32, usually. (Although I never took DA personally)

 

Pre 32 you will use divine avalanche to supplement defenses. By the time you hit 32, if you invest in io's you will not need divine avalanche.

 

My fully io'd Kat/SR scrap is so durable she doesn't need medicine pool and her defenses are all 54%+ without DA and 49% s/l resist, 20-30% others not counting scaling DR. Rebirth at incarnates is there for healing, I've only used it once.

 

Golden Dragonfly, like most scrap t9s will routinely 1 shot bosses. Pumps out solid AoE and huge single target damage.

 

SR blooms late, so the ride to 50 was planned early and I invested in io's early so I had no problems. Under full kit, SR is set and forget unkillable defense and you go full scraplock.

 

Amazing combo.

Edited March 15, 2020 by SwitchFade

[Werner]

45 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

SR blooms late, so the ride to 50 was planned early and I invested in io's early so I had no problems.

Yeah, I planned my SR build out and bought all my IOs before I even started leveling, and I'm slotting as I level. That made it bloom early rather than late. That's the only toon I've ever done that on. I might not do it again, but my friends and I had agreed these were going to be our "slowbies", no double XP booster, stopping XP every few levels to keep from outleveling content and try to run all the interesting arcs. I think we did that to level 12, and then we all were like, "yeah, screw that, double XP charge!!!"

[Crater Kate]

On 3/11/2020 at 7:59 AM, Obus Form said:

While /SR can achieve 63% S/L and 57% E/NE resist at low HP, /Dark Armour and other resist based sets can achieve the same level of Resist at 100%.  Therefore, running around at levels of HP is a risk that could potentially allow you to die, thus preventing enough DPS to kill 3 AVs within 5 seconds of each other. 

 

This is... not completely true.

 

I have a semi-retired StJ/SR Stalker (an AT that shares the same defense scaling as Scrappers) who I've run through Incarnate content for a while, and got to Vet Level 20ish. I built her heavily with survivability in mind, under the premise that a StJ Stalker doesn't really need a ton of help offensively. When I had her fully built out for durability, she was defense softcapped to Incarnate content, and sat at 51% S/L resist at max HP. By half health, that's already up to resistance levels you're talking about. Now granted, I had to do a lot of sketchy things to get her there, like prioritizing Mako's Bite over purple sets, and I rebuilt her a little more "responsibly" later on - with the rebuild, she was somewhere around 43.5% S/L. That's still hitting those resists at around 40% health. It IS possible to get fairly decent resists out of /SR, but you have to work for it.

 

@Werner was a little more on the money - the big problem I've found with /SR is the lack of sustain, ie, healing (the other problem for me was lack of HP, but that's much more a Stalker problem than it is a Scrapper problem). You can take external steps to fix that, but as always you have to make sacrifices to get there. For my Stalker, it was too many pressure points for soloing high level content, but on iTrial teams, she was extremely durable (as well as still outputting stupid damage). As you move through the more durable ATs, where the extra HP helps /SR disproportionately, I think you'll find /SR starts losing a lot of that stress I found it under.

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Crater Kate