Why so few EA Scrappers?

[Saikochoro]

So, Im always trying to make super scrappers. I originally enjoyed bio armor for most any archetype that could take it, but I branched out.  Then I started using energy aura on stalkers and eventually built out a couple scrappers with energy aura. 
 

My question is, why in the world is energy aura the second least popular secondary per the March FOTM statistics? Only ice armor is used less. 
 

Energy aura seems to have it all. Super easy to soft cap all typed defense except Psionic. Has very respectable resists and can even cap when you throw in rune of protection. With the ease of slotting it is easy to grab rune. Ease of slotting also allows for putting in damage procs and whatnot. 
 

It has great endurance tools to manage endurance. It also has a good self heal on a short cooldown. 
 

I honestly can’t think of any downside to energy aura. Soft cap typed defense, capped S&L resist, respectable resist on E/N/F/C (40-50% with rune), good endurance, heal, and + recharge. All with loose enough slotting to allow damage procs. 
 

Why is this not one of the most popular scrapper secondaries?

Edited July 8, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Apparition]

Two reasons.

 

1. A lot of people still don't realize that Energy Aura was substantially buffed in Issue 21.

 

2. A lot of people don't like that Energy Cloak makes your character invisible.

 

But I agree with you.  Energy Aura is one of the top Scrapper secondaries.

[Crater Kate]

The irony is Energy Cloak is extremely skippable, so that's not even a great reason to hold back from the set 🙂

 

I love Energy Aura. It really does give you so much mileage *and* looks so damn good!

 

If I had to leverage some criticisms vs the set on Scrappers, these would be mine:

- The Stalker version of Energy Aura gets a flat +20% recharge on Entropy Shield, vs the less potent scaling recharge on Energy Aura. Also the whole AT is a Stealth AT so the Energy Cloak friction is more palatable for those who don't like Cloak (but again, it's a very skippable power so)

- Brutes are a good chunk tougher than Scrappers, and the big health pool makes the layered nature of EA really shine. Scrappers have to work a lot harder to get that kind of performance with the set

- The psi hole is absolutely gaping and almost impossible to patch. There's a butt-ton of psi late game, so EA hurts then.

 

.... but with all that said, the set is still incredible to the point where none of the above really matters. You're still getting lots recharge, you're still layering quite well, you have great End tools, a good self heal, and look awesome. The psi hole sucks but almost everything's weak to something, so that's just something to stomach.

[Saikochoro]

While energy cloak can be skipped it is very nice for adding quite a bit of defense that isn’t suppressed in combat.  It makes hitting those soft caps super easy. I do understand not wanting the look of it though. At least it’s not as bad as bio armor minimal FX though 🙂. 
 

As far as the psi hole, I agree it is there, but it plenty of other sets have a hole for psi as well.  On my Claws/EA scrapper, I have 20% defense to psi with 33.6% resistance (with rune). Rune has about 50% uptime so it’s pretty good. Solo just have to be a bit wary of psi, but the heal does pretty good. So yeah, not all that bad. 
 

I tend to agree with Apparition, I think people just don’t know how awesome EA is on scrappers. I only started realizing it maybe a couple months ago. 
 

Hopefully this gets more people to see the light. 

[Krazie Ivan]

shhh...
shut your psi hole, it's not a very good set!
<.<
>.>
 

 

seriously though, psi doesn't hit very hard even when there's "a lot" of it. i've done nothing to bolster psi Def or Res, so only rely on 25% positional Def & 35-37% Res while alternating Rune/M.Core & the Heal/Regen from Energize. if it does more than tickle, i can still slap 26% more Def on it with Meld up 2/3 of the time.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Krazie Ivan
loaded wrong pic, lol

[Sovera]

On 7/9/2020 at 8:51 AM, Krazie Ivan said:

shhh...
shut your psi hole, it's not a very good set!
<.<
>.>
 

 

seriously though, psi doesn't hit very hard even when there's "a lot" of it. i've done nothing to bolster psi Def or Res, so only rely on 25% positional Def & 35-37% Res while alternating Rune/M.Core & the Heal/Regen from Energize. if it does more than tickle, i can still slap 26% more Def on it with Meld up 2/3 of the time.

Allow me just to cackle at the careful editing to hide the slotting so the build can remain a secret.

[InvaderStych]

.... withdrawn ... I looked at something incorrectly.

Edited July 11, 2020 by InvaderStych

[Sir Myshkin]

22 hours ago, Sovera said:

Allow me just to cackle at the careful editing to hide the slotting so the build can remain a secret.

Oh, it's okay, let them have their secrets.

 

stumbles over a pile of builds in one of a dozen folders laying around

 

Hey, look what I found I built back in May of 2019, a perfectly translatable iCap Stalker build:

 

Spoiler

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7
https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Stalker
Primary Power Set: Dual Blades
Secondary Power Set: Energy Aura
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Leviathan Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Nimble Slash -- SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg(A), SprStlGl-Dmg/Rchg(3), SprStlGl-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(3), Mk'Bit-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Mk'Bit-Dam%(5), GldStr-%Dam(7)
Level 1: Hide -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(25), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(43)
Level 2: Ablating Strike -- Hct-Dam%(A), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Hct-Dmg/Rchg(9), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9), Hct-Acc/Rchg(11), AchHee-ResDeb%(11)
Level 4: Kinetic Shield -- RedFrt-Def(A), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(23), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(23), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(25)
Level 6: Assassin's Blades -- SprStlGl-Rchg/Hide%(A), SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), GldStr-Dam/End/Rech(15), GldStr-Dam/Rech(15), GldStr-%Dam(17)
Level 8: Build Up -- RctRtc-ToHit/Rchg(A), RctRtc-Pcptn(17), RechRdx-I(19)
Level 10: Power Shield -- GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx(A), GifoftheA-Run+(31), GifoftheA-Def(46), GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(48), GifoftheA-Def/Rchg(48)
Level 12: Entropy Shield -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 14: Boxing -- KntCmb-Acc/Dmg(A), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx(43), KntCmb-Dmg/Rchg(45), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 16: Tough -- RctArm-ResDam(A), RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx(27), RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(27), RctArm-ResDam/Rchg(29)
Level 18: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(19), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(21), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(21)
Level 20: Disrupt -- Acc-I(A)
Level 22: Kinetic Dampening -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), TtnCtn-ResDam(29), TtnCtn-ResDam/Rchg(31), GldArm-3defTpProc(42)
Level 24: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31)
Level 26: Sweeping Strike -- Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(33), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Arm-Acc/Rchg(33), Arm-Dam%(34), FuroftheG-ResDeb%(34)
Level 28: Energy Drain -- RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(A)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(34), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(40), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 32: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Energize -- DctWnd-Heal(A), DctWnd-Heal/EndRdx(36), DctWnd-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(36), DctWnd-Rchg(36), DctWnd-Heal/Rchg(37)
Level 38: Water Spout -- PstBls-Dam%(A), PstBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(40), PstBls-Dmg/EndRdx(42), PstBls-Dmg/Rchg(42), PstBls-Acc/Dmg(43), AchHee-ResDeb%(48)
Level 41: Hibernate -- Heal-I(A)
Level 44: Placate -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 47: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A)
Level 49: Summon Guardian -- ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(50), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(50), ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(50)
Level 1: Assassination
Level 1: Brawl -- KntCmb-Acc/Dmg(A), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx(45), KntCmb-Dmg/Rchg(46), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(A), NmnCnv-Heal(37), NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx(37), Pnc-Heal/+End(39), Mrc-Rcvry+(39)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod(39)
Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
Level 0: Portal Jockey
Level 50: Reactive Radial Flawless Interface
Level 50: Rebirth Total Radial Invocation
Level 50: Assault Core Embodiment
Level 50: Musculature Radial Paragon
Level 1: Quick Form
------------

 

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And looking at it briefly, there's still room for improvement in there, nice! 🤣

[Plutoria]

What Psi hole?

 

[Krazie Ivan]

On 7/10/2020 at 1:57 AM, Sovera said:

Allow me just to cackle at the careful editing to hide the slotting

glad you enjoyed it!

[oedipus_tex]

I got one to the mid 30s and abandoned when I realized he was going to be perma hidden/invisible with no way to disable it like you can with Dark Armor. 

[Hjarki]

On 7/8/2020 at 7:10 PM, Crater Kate said:

- The Stalker version of Energy Aura gets a flat +20% recharge on Entropy Shield, vs the less potent scaling recharge on Energy Aura. Also the whole AT is a Stealth AT so the Energy Cloak friction is more palatable for those who don't like Cloak (but again, it's a very skippable power so)

Fully saturated, EA gives +40% recharge. On a single target, it gives +8.5% recharge. Since the primary use for excessive recharge is AE rather than single target, I think this is a good deal.

 

Energy Cloak gives +4.28% universal defense, which is more than enough reason to take it.

 

Claws/EA is also one of the best pure farmers (although it can be built for general play as well) around.

[Saikochoro]

I agree claws / EA is a monster. I didn’t make one for farming, but for general content. But it is a beast. 

 

I can’t get enough of EA. I even just yesterday decided to try it out on a sentinel and it rocks on that archetype as well. I can only imagine how awesome this set would be if tankers were able to get it. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Saikochoro said:

I agree claws / EA is a monster. I didn’t make one for farming, but for general content. But it is a beast. 

 

I can’t get enough of EA. I even just yesterday decided to try it out on a sentinel and it rocks on that archetype as well. I can only imagine how awesome this set would be if tankers were able to get it. 

Pretty sure after they saw how ridiculous SR was on tanks they went, "oops."

[Saikochoro]

2 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Pretty sure after they saw how ridiculous SR was on tanks they went, "oops."

Yeah I have a feeling they don’t want to risk EA on tanks. Soft cap defense to every type but Psionic. Capped resists to every type but Psionic. High recharge. All within possibility on tanks. I don’t think an EA tank could die even if it wanted to. 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Crater Kate]

1 hour ago, Hjarki said:

Fully saturated, EA gives +40% recharge. On a single target, it gives +8.5% recharge. Since the primary use for excessive recharge is AE rather than single target, I think this is a good deal.

 

Energy Cloak gives +4.28% universal defense, which is more than enough reason to take it.

 

Claws/EA is also one of the best pure farmers (although it can be built for general play as well) around.

Fair enough on EA, I didn't realize its recharge scaled quite that hard. That's a more reasonable tradeoff, then.

 

And you're not wrong about Energy Cloak, but given that I count myself among the people who don't like being forced to be invisible, I haven't found it to be the end of the world to skip it. It's definitely the most efficient choice, but you can make that up elsewhere if you want to.

 

Edit: and again, I want to reinforce that I do not think Energy Aura is bad by ANY means. I love this set, I think it is incredibly good across archetypes. I'm just trying to illustrate why some people don't like it.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Crater Kate

[Hjarki]

4 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

Yeah I have a feeling they don’t want to risk EA on tanks. Soft cap defense to every type but Psionic. Capped resists to every type but Psionic. High recharge. All within possibility on tanks. I don’t think an EA tank could die even if it wanted to. 

Capped Resists? Energy Armor gives ~10% to all non-Psi resists. That's a long, long ways from cap.

 

I think the main virtue of Energy Armor is that it's an adequate defense set for a Scrapper/Stalker that also happens to bring the recharge and stealth. That's very different from Super Reflexes on a Tanker where you can get Incarnate level positional defenses (which, unlike typed defenses, affect Psionic/Toxic) and a scaling damage resist that will hard-cap you across the board at some (very low) life total (depending on how much base resist you have).

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Hjarki said:

Capped Resists? Energy Armor gives ~10% to all non-Psi resists. That's a long, long ways from cap.

 

I think the main virtue of Energy Armor is that it's an adequate defense set for a Scrapper/Stalker that also happens to bring the recharge and stealth. That's very different from Super Reflexes on a Tanker where you can get Incarnate level positional defenses (which, unlike typed defenses, affect Psionic/Toxic) and a scaling damage resist that will hard-cap you across the board at some (very low) life total (depending on how much base resist you have).

I was over zealous in my assumptions for tanker values and forgot to exclude toxic as well.  Energy armor on tankers would give 25% more base resist than on the other melees.  My brute is capped on S/L. So tanker would easily get that. He is at 60% on F/C, 66% energy, and 54% negative.  The higher base values would give a bit more. I had incorrectly assumed that rune may provide higher values on tanker.  Based on set bonuses though the tanker could still get very high resist values on f/c/e/n. 
 

Still I am sure energy aura would still be extremely strong on tankers. Having higher health and self heal would only make it more so. 
 

All that said, energy aura is far more than just an “adequate” set for stalkers and scrappers. It is amazing and easily top tier on both. It is equally strong on brutes. 
 

Edit:  I played around in MIDs for set bonuses using MA/SR tanker as a baseline to export set bonuses since both sets would have a lot of defense slotting. Slotting would be slightly different, but I could largely use the same sets. The resistances given by energy aura for e/n/f/c would be about 14.86%. The set bonuses for f/c would be about 40.25%. The set bonus for e/n would be about 34.25%. The tanker ATO proc would be 6.7%. Rune of protection would give 25%. I believe I’d be able to achieve within a few percentage points: 90% s/l, 85% f/c, and 80% e/n. Toxic and Psionic would obviously be less. This would also still be high recharge. I can’t say for sure because Mids doesn’t have EA for tankers. 
 

This isn’t to say it would be better than SR. Just saying I think that EA could still achieve very close to capped resistance for most types. Along with having good defense and a self heal. 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Hjarki]

2 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

I was over zealous in my assumptions for tanker values and forgot to exclude toxic as well.  Energy armor on tankers would give 25% more base resist than on the other melees.  My brute is capped on S/L. So tanker would easily get that. He is at 60% on F/C, 66% energy, and 54% negative.  The higher base values would give a bit more. I had incorrectly assumed that rune may provide higher values on tanker.  Based on set bonuses though the tanker could still get very high resist values on f/c/e/n. 

Regardless of what you do with set bonuses, EA is still one of the lowest resist sets. Those numbers also sound suspiciously like you're including Incarnates like Destiny.

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Hjarki said:

Regardless of what you do with set bonuses, EA is still one of the lowest resist sets. Those numbers also sound suspiciously like you're including Incarnates like Destiny.

Nope. No incarnates. I would have indicated so in my calculation if I included incarnates. Just rune of protection. But I use rune on most any defense set. 

 

EA is mainly a defense set. It just also has resists that can be boosted very high with rune and set bonuses. It also has a self heal, recovery, and recharge powers. It is an extremely strong set no matter how you look at it. 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Hjarki]

7 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

Nope. No incarnates. I would have indicated so in my calculation if I included incarnates. Just rune of protection. But I use rune on most any defense set. 

 

EA is mainly a defense set. It just also has resists that can be boosted very high with rune and set bonuses. It also has a self heal, recovery, and recharge powers. It is an extremely strong set no matter how you look at it. 

Rune of Protection is not part of EA. That's like saying Electric Armor is great for Defense because you can soft-cap all your defenses with Unleash Potential.

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Hjarki said:

Rune of Protection is not part of EA. That's like saying Electric Armor is great for Defense because you can soft-cap all your defenses with Unleash Potential.

I never said it was. It just stacks well with it. It is used quite often in many builds. There is no reason to not use various tools.  It’s no different than including tough, weave, and hasten in builds. Set bonuses aren’t part of any powerset either. They are additional.
 

I would use rune with super reflexes as well. 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Hjarki]

7 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

I never said it was. It just stacks well with it. It is used quite often in many builds. There is no reason to not use various tools.  It’s no different than including tough, weave, and hasten in builds. Set bonuses aren’t part of any powerset either. They are additional.

It's different because it's not an always on buff like tough, weave and hasten. So it normally wouldn't be quoted as part of your resists, any more than Destiny ability or Inspirations would. Your argument was that Energy Aura on a Tanker would have tremendous defenses and resist. Except it wouldn't. It would have decent defenses and mediocre resists. The fact that you could get soft-capped/hard-capped with enough temporary boosts isn't really relevant to the value of the set as a whole.

[marcussmythe]

On 7/8/2020 at 6:55 PM, Saikochoro said:

As far as the psi hole, I agree it is there, but it plenty of other sets have a hole for psi as well.  On my Claws/EA scrapper, I have 20% defense to psi with 33.6% resistance (with rune). Rune has about 50% uptime so it’s pretty good. Solo just have to be a bit wary of psi, but the heal does pretty good. So yeah, not all that bad. 

Plenty of other sets do have a hole to psionic damage.  That does not make having such a hole reasonable - its a leftover from early design days when psi damage was quite rare.  As the game aged, the developers first started handing out psi damage like it was candy, and then made later armor sets that had that hole covered in set, without resorting to pool powers and layered cooldowns for survival (if one is layering long cooldowns for survival, why not just play a blaster?)

 

EA is still a great set (better on Stalkers than Scrappers, though other sets are better on scrappers than stalkers, so /shrug), but the psi damage hole is poor, outdated design.

 

I think for ME, my thought on EA is that if I am going to build a defense set, and with numerous defense focused sets in the offering - Im more likely to end up with SR or Shield, because typed defense sets by definition have a hole at 'toxic' and almost always have a hole at psi, whereas positional sets.. dont (there are a very few non-positional attacks, so I am told, but Ive never noticed).  SR further boasts scaling resist, and of course Shield has some resist, and also a good attack, and also a general damage buff.   Things like EA are probably stronger in their areas of strength than the positional sets - but weaknesses hurt you more than having seriously over the top defenses against specific things - especially things that EVERYONE is very good against.  (Its the Invuln problem.  Yes, Invuln is better against S/L than anything short of Granite.  Noone cares.  S/L doest kill melee characters at endgame - exotics and debuffs do - so what matters is how well exotics and debuffs are covered, not how extra-unkillable you are against S/L... but those sets are still 'taxed' for being unnecessarily strong in some areas by having holes, or offering less utility/damage/sustain.  Other old sets suffer a bit from this - Dark is very strong against both S/L and Psi, but in turn has a hole for Toxic and Energy.  Toxic isnt common late, but Energy becomes VERY common indeed)

Edited July 17, 2020 by marcussmythe

[Saikochoro]

5 hours ago, Hjarki said:

It's different because it's not an always on buff like tough, weave and hasten. So it normally wouldn't be quoted as part of your resists, any more than Destiny ability or Inspirations would. Your argument was that Energy Aura on a Tanker would have tremendous defenses and resist. Except it wouldn't. It would have decent defenses and mediocre resists. The fact that you could get soft-capped/hard-capped with enough temporary boosts isn't really relevant to the value of the set as a whole.

I do understand what you are saying. Don’t get me wrong. That’s why I always qualify that I’m using rune, which will usually have 50% uptime. It’s still a pool power that is factored into the strength of a build. Being that the base mitigation of energy aura is capped defenses the rune can be applied to buff up resistance values whenever lucky attacks get through.
 

The fact is that given the same tools that other builds have with power pools and set bonuses energy aura is a power house for any archetype that can take it. It has a base of very good defense, resistances that can be boosted very high to lower any damage that makes it through the defense, and a heal that takes care of the rest.

 

Not saying other builds can’t be made strong with pool powers and set bonuses. The while purpose of the thread was to highlight that energy aura is indeed a very strong set. 
 

Edit:  not to derail the thread too far, but our discussion made me interested in MA / SR tanker. The build I made in mids for it to export set bonuses has incarnate capped defenses just like you said. With set bonuses, rune, and tanker ATO proc I have 86% s/l, 75.6 f/c, 69.6% e/n, and 53.1 toxic/psi resists. That is before scaling resist are taken into account. Subtract 25% from each to get the non rune totals. Looks to be very fun indeed. Starting making him last night as we were having a discussion. 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Saikochoro