Claw/Rad or Rad/Claw

[Aeroprism]

Hello beautiful people.

 

Recently re-fell in love with Claws, my Claw/Bio brute is levelling like nobody's business.

 

I want to try the Claw / Rad combo.  Not on a stalker obviously because Stalkers, however awesome as a general rule, sucked all life out of Claws.

 

So this leaves us with Scrappers, Brutes and Tankers.  

 

What would be the pros and cons of each?  Thanks!

 

 

[Aeroprism]

I thought you were on a good beeline with tanker but then you started talking about scrappers and suddenly my heart went wooooooo

 

Leaning toward scrapper for now, let's see what other people think.

[Sancerre]

4 hours ago, Dark Dove said:

Tanker AoE size is a big pull, spin becomes really great at 12'.  Also very high base values for defense and resist and hit points makes Rad very good all around and easy to build for on tankers. These simple reasons alone make it very desirable.

 

Scrappers will do much higher single target damage and still do good AoE damage.  For Rad armor, Scrappers have the benefit of the super high damage bonus on Meltdown (45%?) and can also make use of the +res from it, where a tanker probably wouldn't need it at all, so that's a plus and a big damage bonus to rotate in every time it's up.  They also get a little-known regen bonus that other AT's don't get as far as I can tell when using Rad Therapy, which encourages you to put five procs and a +healing% in it for big aoe damage and to fire it off as often as possible to keep the +100% enhanceable regen bonus running (you would want to do that on a tank too, but it's just better on the scrapper for the regen boost).  Since it has additional layers (regen/absorb), this makes a great scrapper set even though it isn't defense based.

 

I don't see much synergy for the Brute AT, seems like it has the least incentives for this combination.

 

rad therapy on scrapper is 'fine' to proc bomb but... especially on claw scrapper i really dont see the point.  shockwave and spin are incredible damage aoe and also insanely low cooldown. for rad therapy proc slotting, the regen is good and essence theft proc is good... otherwise i think it is a waste.  for tanker, it is definitely more worthwhile to consider.

 

to the OP: claw/rad scrapper has _consistent_ incredibly high damage output and durability (except cold resistance but its uncommon).  rad/claw tanker should also be very strong but you do need to be aware you are trading damage:defense between them.  the 90% resistance cap --IS-- very significant but depending on the content you do and what role you want to fill... that may not matter to you.  on the opposite end... stronger baseline damage and critical strikes is also very significant... bosses and up will take a lot of time more time to kill for tanker.

 

as for brute they fit in the middle of that... higher resistance cap but more difficult to actually get there because all of the base defense numbers are the same as scrapper.  also the fury passive damage bonus kinda dillutes the consistent damage bonuses that claw/rad provides.  all that said, brute would probably be the most enjoyable experience solo, whereas tanker/scrapper would probably feel better in teams (depending which role you prefer).

[Sancerre]

55 minutes ago, Dark Dove said:

 

Why? What is a brute doing solo that a scrapper isn't doing better?

 

If you don't see the point in adding procs to Rad Therapy, are you just not using it at all? What else would you slot there that would have more impact when you use it on cooldown? How are you building in such a way that you require any other kind of slotting (such as overslotting on heal or recharge)? I don't really get what you're advising here.

 

brute has higher damage resistances and still has acceptable damage output for bosses+.  if you dont see the value in 90% damage cap vs 75% damage cap then you are entirely ignorant of the math.  also larger HP pool to compliment rad's high regen and absorb.  anyways, there is plenty of content where the 75% damage resistance is perfectly acceptable and easily more than acceptable to get by with however.  i dont think i was hiding anything when i said that but you chopped out my entire post and highlighted one line.

 

as for rad therapy -on claw scrapper-, of course you would still use rad therapy for healing and endurance.  spin and shockwave both cooldown fast enough (especially with force feedback recharge procs) to be spamming them a ton whereas rad therapy has a much longer cooldown.  also they both will be doing as much or MORE damage than rad therapy.  the better question here is why do you think it has value in slotting damage procs -on claw scrapper-.  What function is it serving that spin/shockwave isnt?  i would say, additionally, ground zero is kinda skippable but it is nice for aoe -res procs and it also hits a much higher target cap.  the DPA isnt much different than spin otherwise.  if this was playing in something like energy melee scrapper instead, where the AoE is... lacking... i would have a different opinion on slotting rad therapy.

 

in case my opinion wasnt clear in my first post -- the combination of claw/rad for tanker, brute, and scrapper are -ALL- strong.  you just need to choose what ratio of offense/defense you prefer between the 3.  also inspirations/p2w buffs will give the largest benefit (relatively) to scrappers so you can hide a lot of defensive under-comings it has through that.

[Dark Dove]

Okay, sorry.

 

Enjoy!

[Aeroprism]

Don't be so serious guys, it's just a fun game 🙂

 

I'm looking for the most fun combo, not necessarily the more efficient one.  I know that attack chains are what every serious player aims for but, if my life with a character amounts to spamming the two same buttons, I will go mad 😄

 

[Snarky]

On 8/15/2021 at 1:07 PM, Dark Dove said:

 

Why? What is a brute doing solo that a scrapper isn't doing better?

 

If you don't see the point in adding procs to Rad Therapy, are you just not using it at all? What else would you slot there that would have more impact when you use it on cooldown? How are you building in such a way that you require any other kind of slotting (such as overslotting on heal or recharge)? I don't really get what you're advising here.

Brutes are tougher than Scrappers.  Against bosses (when your Fury gets topped out consistently) the damage is very good, although still slightly lower than Scrappers.  When you pull a room (which a Brute loves to do) your Fury will top out and the damage is very good.  It is a bull in a china shop playstyle.  As long as you have a topped out Fury mechanic you are going to be doing good damage. You have near Tanker survivability.  Tanker are tougher and have the AoE buff.  Scrappers get crits.  Pick your battle plan.

[Snarky]

1 minute ago, Dark Dove said:

 

... nothing you've said that leads me to believe a Brute would be any more enjoyable solo than a scrapper,...Scrappers will clear missions faster and survive just as well, virtually equally, with similar build practices solo. 

Enjoyable.  That is a tough metric.  Play what you like.  I am currently soloing most of the game (story arcs) on a Blaster.  Clears faster than a scrapper lol

[Snarky]

1 minute ago, Dark Dove said:

 

It is but there is something kind of hilarious about arguing semantics when it's clear that these things are equivalent in all ways except for name until you account for efficiency, right? You're doing it yourself with your Blaster reference.

I have soloed Redside many times on a Brute. It is slower than the Blaster. It is also like driving a plush high end Humvee with all the comforts instead of a 1930s racecar with an engine a gas pedal and a steering wheel.

[Apparition]

Personally, I would never play a resistance based armor set like Radiation Armor on a Scrapper nor a Stalker, only a Brute or Tanker.  You'd intentionally hobble the strength of the armor set, its resistance, with the 75% resistance cap on Scrappers and Stalkers compared to the 90% resistance cap on Brutes and Tankers.  To each his or her own though.

[Erratic1]

16 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Personally, I would never play a resistance based armor set like Radiation Armor on a Scrapper nor a Stalker, only a Brute or Tanker.  You'd intentionally hobble the strength of the armor set, its resistance, with the 75% resistance cap on Scrappers and Stalkers compared to the 90% resistance cap on Brutes and Tankers.  To each his or her own though.

 

Having a Claws/Elec Scrapper who I find great fun, I may be biased here but isn't the best scrapper strategy for survival to max both resistance and defense? If you're doing that then it makes little difference between Defense or Resistance based armor sets.

 

While it may be true that it is harder to cap out on the damage mitigation type your armor set does not provide you can probably still layer enough targeted mitigation to still be ahead of simply relying on only Defense or Resistance.

[nihilii]

Rad/Claws = Tanker all the way.

Higher Spin radius and target cap is a thing of beauty.

Easy 90% res to most damage types, without Meltdown/Hybrid.

 

Slower recharge / higher damaging Claws power (this is shared with Brutes, Tankers just get the other above neat things on top).

 

Follow Up +DAM works better with Tanker's higher base damage and lower buffed damage than for Brutes.

 

I honestly don't know if this is the most efficient. There are some Claws scrapper builds pushing monster DPS out there. And DPS is king.

 

But... if you're looking for fun? It's hard to top VERY HIGH RESISTANCES and LARGE RADIUS AOEs WITH HIGH TARGET CAP, in my opinion. Both aspects that are very high in fun factor. Watching enemies hit those low digits. Then drop all the minions in one AoE.

 

The large Tanker HP pool also makes all this resistance-building (and the regeneration in Rad powers) even more fun.

 

[Aeroprism]

On 8/18/2021 at 6:37 PM, nihilii said:

Rad/Claws = Tanker all the way.

Higher Spin radius and target cap is a thing of beauty.

Easy 90% res to most damage types, without Meltdown/Hybrid.

 

Slower recharge / higher damaging Claws power (this is shared with Brutes, Tankers just get the other above neat things on top).

 

Follow Up +DAM works better with Tanker's higher base damage and lower buffed damage than for Brutes.

 

I honestly don't know if this is the most efficient. There are some Claws scrapper builds pushing monster DPS out there. And DPS is king.

 

But... if you're looking for fun? It's hard to top VERY HIGH RESISTANCES and LARGE RADIUS AOEs WITH HIGH TARGET CAP, in my opinion. Both aspects that are very high in fun factor. Watching enemies hit those low digits. Then drop all the minions in one AoE.

 

The large Tanker HP pool also makes all this resistance-building (and the regeneration in Rad powers) even more fun.

 

 

This there is extremely sexy.

 

Tank it is. 

[Meknomancer]

I just finished a claws/rad scrapper its tons of fun but incredibly squishy but i find this is always the case with my /rad scraps. I love the crits but i just feel like it would of been better as a brute or tank if only tanks weren't forced into taking the feeble tier 1 attack. So my vote goes to the brute (even though i know the tank would be superior) .