SM/Claws with something

[sourpatch1985]

So I was wondering what does more dmg over all between the two. I like both but savage melee with the dots, Im not sure if i should be wasting my blood frenzy or just keep it going. Does using blood frenzy make a difference much in dmg? I love the animations a little more then claws plus the joy of savage leap. Also not sure if  rending flurry is worth it or hemorrhage. hemorrhage is slow and i feel like a faster string of attacks would make up for it. Rending flurry, the radious is small and not sure if its worth it.

 

I do love claws, it has some bad ass animations, quick but no dots. and less to manage.

 

So what do you think, do the dots add up quicker then the burst and speed of claws? And what would you pair with? my character is a more natural kind of guy, would do bio but the minimal effects are still not enough to hide the ugly. so i was thinking willpower/Invul. SR doesnt provide enough resist, shield is ok i guess,but not too interested. 

[dangeraaron10]

Sav/Rad Broot player here.

 

Frenzy doesn't increase damage but it either reduces recharge and/or endurance use.  For Brutes I generally skip Hemo (Stalkers use it super well but Hemo doesn't mesh well with Brute Fury).  I only use Rending as a Frenzy spender for AoE but ONLY if Blood is up to replenish Frenzy.  If you have no stacks your DPS plummets.

[sourpatch1985]

I see, so because you get the recharge from frenzy your attacks come back faster which allows you to get more attacks off. but I still wonder about claws. I'm hoping more people will help with this. I am thankful for the advice though. 

[dangeraaron10]

I love love love Radiation Armor but for a natural guy.... Willpower.  Its the Rich Man's Regen with proper defenses.  I have no experience with claws so I can't talk about that one.

 

My limited understanding of Claws is that its an oldie but a goodie.  No frills, no nonsense lethal damage with great AoE and is popular with farming Brutes as an alternative to Spines.

Edited October 2, 2020 by dangeraaron10

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, dangeraaron10 said:

My limited understanding of Claws is that its an oldie but a goodie.  No frills, no nonsense lethal damage with great AoE and is popular with farming Brutes as an alternative to Spines.

That's a good description.

 

I love claws. I've tried savage a few times but it doesn't click with me. Claws has a purity to it that I've only seen matched with fire blast.

Swipe: Early game, this is amazing to fill in the blanks wherever they appear in your attack chain. End game respec, take it, remove it from your tray, never bother slotting it. (Unless you're a scrapper, when you can single slot the passive +crit chance AT IO)

Strike: Slightly better DPA than swipe, but it's the gut-punch animation from the fighting pool boxing. Early game, you could take it but you don't need to.

Slash: Your first must have attack. Beautiful, fierce double cut that lets you slot a Achilles' Heel Chance for -DamRes.

Spin: The reason I'll never play claws on a stalker. No spin? You ain't playin claws. Spin is to claws what Foot Stomp is to super strength.

Followup: This is your build up. It needs to be in constant rotation. With enough recharge, you can run Followup, Focus, Slash, repeat which triple stacks the FU buff on Focus.

Focus: Oh, focus. Unskippable power #3 in the set. Ranged, fast, glorious.

Eviscerate: Here's an odd one. For me it's a horrible power simply due to its animation. Some folks like it. I think they're all quite mad. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Nice little cone, but unnecessary when you can run Followup, Focus, Spin, Shockwave, repeat as your aoe chain. On scrappers, it has a higher chance to crit than the other attacks and with their AT IO procs also buffing crit chance, and argument can (and probably should) be made to use it in a single target attack chain. But for brutes and tanks? Nah, I skip it.

Shockwave: Huge cone, does knockback if you like it, throw a KB->KD proc in there if you don't. I do so that I don't knock everyone out of my spin radius.

 

Followup needs 313% total recharge in it for the FU, Focus, Slash, repeat attack chain. I have yet to actually manage that but I'm close enough that I still get the triple stack of buff on Focus. If you can get to permahasten, you'll be close enough. I've also silenced the Not Ready sound so that problem is dealt with.

 

Scrapper attack chains I use:
ST - Followup, Focus, Slash, repeat
AoE - Followup, Spin, Shockwave, repeat

 

Brute/Tank attack chains I use:
ST - Followup, Focus, Slash, repeat
AoE - Followup, Focus, Spin, Shockwave, repeat (Brute/Tank base recharge for spin and sw are higher so that their base damage is higher, thus the need for more time)

[Bill Z Bubba]

I didn't talk about secondaries.

Less clicks means more clawing.

Willpower will probably win on that statement. Don't think any other secondary is nearly as fire and forget.

SR comes close, but I leave hasten on auto and click Practiced Brawler when hasten recycles but Quickness also means a tighter claws attack chain.

NrgAura, I don't know. Kinda clicky, but I've seen quite a few folks talking about how pretty it is. I'd throw Ninjitsu into the same bucket.

Shield would be nice but we aren't allowed to do that.

My farmer is a Claws/FA brute. One of these days I may get around to cranking dual-builds on my FA/Claws tank for both normal and farming gameplay.

I would assume Elec Armor and Rad Armor would be similar to Fire.

Regen is crap.

Stone... nope, no claws on stone. Can't be done. Then again, stone armor's also crap, so who cares? 🙂

Ice? See regen and stone.

 

Edited October 2, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Bill Z Bubba]

Also, damnit. I have a new claws/wp scrapper. Belinda Blender. Street hunted in Atlas to lvl 6 and now I'm in the Hollows runnin Wilcott's missions.

[RobotLove]

Invuln Bill. Claws/Invuln w/ Gaussians in Invincible. True Carnage. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, RobotLove said:

Invuln Bill. Claws/Invuln w/ Gaussians in Invincible. True Carnage. 

Yea, been lookin at that. Went Kat/Inv for the same reason.

[Haijinx]

I've done claws/wp and claws/sr brutes.  

 

Both are awesome. 

SR on brutes has the perfect progression and balance IMO. 

WP on brutes has this sort of unique aspect that any buffs from the team will make you much harder to kill      

 

Claws vs Savage is sort of a performance vs Style thing.  Claws feels OG City of Heroes Style.  Savage feels a lot fresher (animations/sound effects and so on).

 

 

[Nyghtmaire]

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Also, damnit. I have a new claws/wp scrapper. Belinda Blender. Street hunted in Atlas to lvl 6 and now I'm in the Hollows runnin Wilcott's missions.

Did Belinda blink? Makes me want to pair it with a Stone/Anything Tank called “Rocky Flintstone.”

[sourpatch1985]

thank you for all the help. clearly claws is the victor. thank you. 

[DocMidknight]

On 10/2/2020 at 12:09 PM, RobotLove said:

Invuln Bill. Claws/Invuln w/ Gaussians in Invincible. True Carnage. 

  Are we talking putting full set into Invincible or just the proc? 

[RobotLove]

2 hours ago, DocMidknight said:

  Are we talking putting full set into Invincible or just the proc? 

Just the proc, Doc.

[DocMidknight]

8 hours ago, RobotLove said:

Just the proc, Doc.

Thanks.