Good powerset combo's

[Randolk]

Battle Axe/Shield. Be the king of KD. Bonus point: you can slot plenty FF proc.

[Cold Hard Cash]

On 8/10/2021 at 10:03 AM, Nightmarer said:

Katana is an obsolete set to nowadays standards, it deals sustained dps but War Mace is much much much better in all accounts since sustained dps won't take you anywhere on a team, things die fast and katana does not kill fast. Katana chars are just a matter of concept but it's definitely one of the worst scrapper primaries nowadays and needs a  serious revamp imho.

What about DB? is DB worth lvling and how does it compare to other scrap primes? Im also curious why there are combos with DB? I havent yet realized why i need to run them vs just smashing buttons on CD.

[StrikerFox]

1 hour ago, Cold Hard Cash said:

What about DB? is DB worth lvling and how does it compare to other scrap primes? Im also curious why there are combos with DB? I havent yet realized why i need to run them vs just smashing buttons on CD.

 

After issue 12, newer powersets had some gimmicks to set them apart from older sets. DB and StJ with their combo systems, TW with it's momentum system, Staff with it's form types, Savage with it's speed/end redux buffs etc. I think Paragon Studios were charging for the newer sets and these gimmicks made them more appealing to the playerbase.

 

DB/ElecA held the record for the fastest pylon time for a long time back during live. Attack Vitals is pretty good in terms of dps but DB's best attack chain is Blinding-Ablating-Sweeping-Ablating-repeat. Though I think Blinding-Sweeping-Nimble-Ablating-repeat would do ok since the Empower combo is a part of the chain.

 

[Wavicle]

On 8/10/2021 at 10:03 AM, Nightmarer said:

Katana is an obsolete set to nowadays standards, it deals sustained dps but War Mace is much much much better in all accounts since sustained dps won't take you anywhere on a team, things die fast and katana does not kill fast. Katana chars are just a matter of concept but it's definitely one of the worst scrapper primaries nowadays and needs a  serious revamp imho.

 

This isn't true at all. 100% fabrication.

[Cold Hard Cash]

41 minutes ago, StrikerFox said:

 

After issue 12, newer powersets had some gimmicks to set them apart from older sets. DB and StJ with their combo systems, TW with it's momentum system, Staff with it's form types, Savage with it's speed/end redux buffs etc. I think Paragon Studios were charging for the newer sets and these gimmicks made them more appealing to the playerbase.

 

DB/ElecA held the record for the fastest pylon time for a long time back during live. Attack Vitals is pretty good in terms of dps but DB's best attack chain is Blinding-Ablating-Sweeping-Ablating-repeat. Though I think Blinding-Sweeping-Nimble-Ablating-repeat would do ok since the Empower combo is a part of the chain.

 

Should I take more then one chain of attack skills like all Vitals + nimble and then choose other powers instead?

[StrikerFox]

4 hours ago, Cold Hard Cash said:

Should I take more then one chain of attack skills like all Vitals + nimble and then choose other powers instead?

 

If going strictly for dps, I would probably skip Nimble and Vengeful. Run the top attack chain (Blinding-Ablating-Sweeping-Ablating) for ST damage. Take 1k Cuts and Typhoon's just for some AoE. Power over Nimble just so the Sweep Combo can be used.

 

While leveling, take all attacks. Weaken can be used by level 6, Empower can be used by level 8. Attack Vitals at 26 and Sweep at 32. Respec after 32 if you feel you'd like to weed a combo out.

 

If playing DB for the fun factor, I would probably take all attacks. Though some would only have a few slots in them, just so their usable for the combos.

[Super_Soar]

I'm trying to decide between MA and DB for a /DA scrapper I want to make. I know DB has no synergy with it, it just fits my theme well and I like the set a lot both visually and mechanically. Main reason I'm considering MA is the disorients would synergize well with Oppressive Gloom, yes? I guess I'm just not sure how good that synergy is or how much better it makes MA/DA over DB/DA. I know DB has nothing innately to work with either CoF or OG, so not sure if those powers would be even worth taking generally if I went DB/DA.

 

Figured this was a good place to ask instead of making my own thread. Thanks for any answers.

[Sovera]

On 8/10/2021 at 6:15 PM, Nightmarer said:

I'd say KD is a much better mitigation than lethal / melee def especially if you have to spam DA resulting in a big DPS loss. DA won't help you much in the endgame either where most dmg is nrg and a big chunk of it is ranged.

 

I just want to say it is common knowledge that most attacks be them ranged, melee, or AoE, have a Smash component. Bullets or arrows are Lethal. Punches or hits with blunt (punches, hammers, rocks, whatever) are Smash. But most energy, negative, and even psi or sonic, do part damage in Smash.

 

Which means that each attacks gets two defense rolls: one for Smash and one for the energy type. If either of the defensive rolls works then the attack is completely negated. Thus a high S/L defense protects against more than you'd give it credit.

[Wavicle]

5 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

I just want to say it is common knowledge that most attacks be them ranged, melee, or AoE, have a Smash component. Bullets or arrows are Lethal. Punches or hits with blunt (punches, hammers, rocks, whatever) are Smash. But most energy, negative, and even psi or sonic, do part damage in Smash.

 

Which means that each attacks gets two defense rolls: one for Smash and one for the energy type. If either of the defensive rolls works then the attack is completely negated. Thus a high S/L defense protects against more than you'd give it credit.

 

But Divine Avalanche doesn't grant Smashing defense. Only Lethal and Melee.

 

You can deflect arrows and bullets with a Katana, but you can't parry an Energy Blast.

[Sovera]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

 

But Divine Avalanche doesn't grant Smashing defense. Only Lethal and Melee.

 

You can deflect arrows and bullets with a Katana, but you can't parry an Energy Blast.

 

Point.

[Wavicle]

5 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

I just want to say it is common knowledge that most attacks be them ranged, melee, or AoE, have a Smash component. Bullets or arrows are Lethal. Punches or hits with blunt (punches, hammers, rocks, whatever) are Smash. But most energy, negative, and even psi or sonic, do part damage in Smash.

 

Which means that each attacks gets two defense rolls: one for Smash and one for the energy type. If either of the defensive rolls works then the attack is completely negated. Thus a high S/L defense protects against more than you'd give it credit.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think attacks get 2 defense rolls. They only get 1 and it is always against the HIGHER of the two defenses. That has been my understanding.

[BrandX]

23 hours ago, Cold Hard Cash said:

Should I take more then one chain of attack skills like all Vitals + nimble and then choose other powers instead?

 

I mained DB/WP Scrapper when CoH shut down.  I soloed ITF with just Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals Combo -> Repeat and Typhoon's Edge for added PBAOE and no Incarnate abilities or Inspirations used.

 

And I don't recall Empower ever being considered better DPS than Attack Vitals.  So, I would think if you can't do Blinding Feint -> AS -> SS -> AS -> Repeat, do the Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals Combo for ST DPS.

 

I could personally get away with just Attack Vitals for solo play as well, but I liked hitting Typhoon's Edge for the animation

[hejtmane]

On 8/18/2021 at 5:27 PM, BrandX said:

 

I mained DB/WP Scrapper when CoH shut down.  I soloed ITF with just Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals Combo -> Repeat and Typhoon's Edge for added PBAOE and no Incarnate abilities or Inspirations used.

 

And I don't recall Empower ever being considered better DPS than Attack Vitals.  So, I would think if you can't do Blinding Feint -> AS -> SS -> AS -> Repeat, do the Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals Combo for ST DPS.

 

I could personally get away with just Attack Vitals for solo play as well, but I liked hitting Typhoon's Edge for the animation

On live I ran this attack chain see link below for reference 

Blinding Feint -> Ablative Strike -> Sweeping Strike -> Power Slice is the compromise choice if you're sub 300% recharge in Ablative Strike

I hate the vengeful slice animation so on my DB/EA I was shy of 300% so i ran that one and could mow down AV solo with no issues. I also ran Typhoon for extra aoe when needed and early leveling it is gold and also great for when i side kicked down for TF's

 

 

[BurningDezire]

On 4/26/2019 at 12:43 PM, Heraclea said:

I really enjoyed my Spines/Willpower scrapper.  Spines is a cheap set to trick out because you can get good bonuses from sets that are not much in demand. 

 

There are a couple Chance for Recharge Slow procs that it takes, Dark Watcher's Despair IIRC, and you can have multiple instances of that in your aura, your pulsing

PBAOE, and even Caltrops.  That puts a lot of debuff on the baddies in very short time. 

 

Spines is a very end heavy set, so Willpower is the obvious secondary.  When nothing else was going on I'd log to my spines scrapper and go work the Roman wall.

Interesting. Is this still the case? Love scrappers and have more than I can afford to deck out but never tried an AoE focused one yet. Or are there better options for a cheap AoE scrapper? Just looking to make one where I can run ahead and jump in the middle of mobs in fast-paced end game team missions.

[Without_Pause]

AoE should be 1. Rad. 2. Spines so I see no reason for it to be not true. On live I went Spines/elec as I don't think WP was out yet, and I wanted something more end friendly than Spines/dark.

[SomeGuy]

On 8/17/2021 at 4:11 PM, StrikerFox said:

 

After issue 12, newer powersets had some gimmicks to set them apart from older sets. DB and StJ with their combo systems, TW with it's momentum system, Staff with it's form types, Savage with it's speed/end redux buffs etc. I think Paragon Studios were charging for the newer sets and these gimmicks made them more appealing to the playerbase.

 

DB/ElecA held the record for the fastest pylon time for a long time back during live. Attack Vitals is pretty good in terms of dps but DB's best attack chain is Blinding-Ablating-Sweeping-Ablating-repeat. Though I think Blinding-Sweeping-Nimble-Ablating-repeat would do ok since the Empower combo is a part of the chain.

 

 

 

wtf i did a triple take to see if I wrote this.

 

 

edit: Spines is absolutely not best AOE. Claws and Rad are better by a noticeable bit. And Electrical Melee is a very AOE heavy set. Is ElM better at the AOE game? Not sure. But you get a teleport boom.

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by SomeGuy

[SomeGuy]

On 8/10/2021 at 11:03 AM, Nightmarer said:

Katana is an obsolete set to nowadays standards, it deals sustained dps but War Mace is much much much better in all accounts since sustained dps won't take you anywhere on a team, things die fast and katana does not kill fast. Katana chars are just a matter of concept but it's definitely one of the worst scrapper primaries nowadays and needs a  serious revamp imho.

 

I went back and found this cause OMG everything about it is wrong. WM and Kat are damn near identical in terms of sustained DPS performance, and the AOE for both is good. Holy crap this post is dumb. Wow. Shaking my head at how wrong this all is.

 

Katana good. Katana look cool.

Edited October 23, 2021 by SomeGuy

[Without_Pause]

On 10/23/2021 at 2:58 AM, SomeGuy said:

 

I went back and found this cause OMG everything about it is wrong. WM and Kat are damn near identical in terms of sustained DPS performance, and the AOE for both is good. Holy crap this post is dumb. Wow. Shaking my head at how wrong this all is.

 

Katana good. Katana look cool.

I don't think they are saying WM has the same kind of DPS. What they are saying is since WM hits harder, things die, and then they move on to the next target to kill it in short fashion. If fights aren't long, sustained DPS isn't that big of a deal.

[Without_Pause]

Leveling a EM/ea and Claws/ea. Doing mostly uncommons in the EM build and cranking out +3/x2 right now at 30. I've done Claws to 50 on a scrapper and brute, and my current leaning is I like it better on a scrapper. I think the crits will help cover it being so resisted. The Claws/ea feels like doing a 2.5 version of my main which originally was a Claws/regen scrapper. 2.0 being Claws/wp brute.

[SomeGuy]

48 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

I don't think they are saying WM has the same kind of DPS. What they are saying is since WM hits harder, things die, and then they move on to the next target to kill it in short fashion. If fights aren't long, sustained DPS isn't that big of a deal.

 

 

For the sake of discussion let's agree that is what the person was trying to say. Now, let's remember Katana has Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly. So, reading it that way, the statement is STILL wrong. Playing Kat is really convenient. You have like, three tiers of options. Gambler's Cut, Soaring Dragon, or Golden Dragonfly. Low HP on a minion, LT, or Boss seems to dictate which you use.

 

Doesn't matter how you read it. It's a bad post. Either intentionally trolling or legit from a bad player. It's like reading someone claiming Regen is good. Kat isn't a good set, it's an amazing set.

[StriderIV]

2 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

 

 

For the sake of discussion let's agree that is what the person was trying to say. Now, let's remember Katana has Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly. So, reading it that way, the statement is STILL wrong. Playing Kat is really convenient. You have like, three tiers of options. Gambler's Cut, Soaring Dragon, or Golden Dragonfly. Low HP on a minion, LT, or Boss seems to dictate which you use.

 

Doesn't matter how you read it. It's a bad post. Either intentionally trolling or legit from a bad player. It's like reading someone claiming Regen is good. Kat isn't a good set, it's an amazing set.

It definitely feels amazing. Do you have a favorite secondary to pair it with? I’m leaning either /Bio or /ENergy armor

[Without_Pause]

You can cap /ea easily enough to where that can be a good/bad thing. I deem it good for leveling and you can swap out DA later on. /bio will be squishier so you have to manage the clicks, but obviously brings in the added offense.

[SomeGuy]

3 hours ago, StriderIV said:

It definitely feels amazing. Do you have a favorite secondary to pair it with? I’m leaning either /Bio or /ENergy armor

 

 

For raw damage, bio all day. If I could do shield, I would. But I'm very biased towards that set. Energy Armor is legit one of my fav armor sets on scrappers. Any armor for scraps with a taunt, really. Kat is really well balanced that way. Divine Avalanche, even as a LOTG mule, does wonders. So I can't imagine it not going really well with resistance based armors like /rad. I know it doesn't get talked about enough, but /inv is a fantastic armor also. But NRG does have a lot going for it. I'd be hard pressed not to do the kat/nrg combo if bio wasn't on the table.

[Grimm2]

11 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

 

 

For raw damage, bio all day. If I could do shield, I would. But I'm very biased towards that set. Energy Armor is legit one of my fav armor sets on scrappers. Any armor for scraps with a taunt, really. Kat is really well balanced that way. Divine Avalanche, even as a LOTG mule, does wonders. So I can't imagine it not going really well with resistance based armors like /rad. I know it doesn't get talked about enough, but /inv is a fantastic armor also. But NRG does have a lot going for it. I'd be hard pressed not to do the kat/nrg combo if bio wasn't on the table.

I'm playing a kat/nrg scrapper right now, with the Teleport pool. Lvl 38 with the +def uniques, and common IOs.

 

It feels. So. Cool. Combat TP with a fast- animating set like Katana is an ultra-responsive combo. No ranged attack, no problem, you *are* the ranged attack. It makes getting into spawns faster on fast teams, too, and the fast attacks mean you don't usually corpse-blast (looking at you, Rad melee).

 

The synergy with a defense set is obvious when leveling, and makes hitting lethal incarnate softcap easy. It feels like a bulky stalker sometimes. There are other combos with more damage, sure, but it's fun. (Crit from stealth like Ninjitsu, please, just for kicks?)

[SomeGuy]

6 hours ago, Grimm2 said:

. There are other combos with more damage, sure, but it's fun. (Crit from stealth like Ninjitsu, please, just for kicks?)

 

As for primaries with more damage, there really aren't many. Kat is a top 5 melee set, and the performance difference is only measurable in a very small amount. Yeah, NRG isn't the highest damage armor, but you said some of the cool things about it. It's an awesome set. Straight up. Lots of neat tools and tricks.

 

I've been seeing some cool things with the TP pool since the changes. I'm gonna take a look at it. I've been a huge combat jumping fan for forever and I love the speed/mobility it provides in combat. And the fact it's an easy +DEF to all and an LOTG mule.