If I wanted to make the most "Badass / Can Run Solo Without a Team," Scrapper, I would make...?

[Ignatz the Insane]

19 minutes ago, 00Troy00 said:

How does Claws compare with Street Justice?

I think Claws compares favorably to any Scrapper Primary personally.  I leveled a Claws/Energy Aura and a Claws/Bio, mostly solo, and they were both fantastic.   Claws is second only to War Mace for me.  I also really like Energy and Katana.  I prefer Dark Melee on Tanks, Street Justice on Stalkers, Savage on Brutes.  Titan Weapon is great at 50 but 'twas a pain to level.  I've never tried Kinetic Melee or Broadsword, they're next on my list.    

 

Beyond that....do yourself a favor and try these out yourself.  You have tons of character slots, and money is trivially easy to make in this game.  I suggest soloing a Scrapper to the early twenties slotting as you go with SOs to get an idea if you like something.   Then worry about spending a bunch on IOs.  Check out the Market Forum and Guide Forum for ideas on easy ways to make money. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

38 minutes ago, 00Troy00 said:

How does Claws compare with Street Justice?

 

Claws is better for me on scrappers. Definitely superior on the AoE side and probably better for ST.

 

Claws is the arguably the worst set on stalkers. It was horrifically gutted in completely ludicrous ways and I can't grok how it has been left in that state all this time.

[Saikochoro]

I’m going to second dark melee / shield defense. Pretty much permanent uptime on extreme damage bonus if you are fighting lots of mobs. Dark melee covers the healing hole in shield and it also make end management easier. Shield is very tough and buffs damage and provide a great AoE.  This combo is my favorite overall scrapper. 
 

I also really love my dual blades / energy aura scrapper. Great survivability and great damage. And I also really like savage melee / bio armor. 
 

Those three are my top three scrappers, but dark melee/shield defense is the best imo. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Saikochoro

[StriderIV]

20 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

I’m going to second dark melee / shield defense. Pretty much permanent uptime on extreme damage bonus if you are fighting lots of mobs. Dark melee covers the healing hole in shield and it also make end management easier. Shield is very tough and buffs damage and provide a great AoE.  This combo is my favorite overall scrapper. 
 

I also really love my dual blades / energy aura scrapper. Great survivability and great damage. And I also really like savage melee / bio armor. 
 

Those three are my top three scrappers, but dark melee/shield defense is the best imo. 

I love your Dark/Shield build Sai. I’ve been wondering how Dark/Stone would work. Part of me thinks that combo might really shine on a Tanker.

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, StriderIV said:

I love your Dark/Shield build Sai. I’ve been wondering how Dark/Stone would work. Part of me thinks that combo might really shine on a Tanker.

I’m sure it would do great on a tanker. My first stone tanker project subsequent to the change is stone/ma. I have been having trouble lately not using MA on tankers though. It’s hard to argue with how strong MA is on tankers. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Saikochoro

[Without_Pause]

1 hour ago, 00Troy00 said:

How does Claws compare with Street Justice?

I think StJ will be solid outside of Stalker, but it is best there where Claws is far worse. A big draw for me with StJ is just how well it flows. I am working on a Shield/stj Tank to see how well I like it outside of being on a Stalker. I love both sets so even if I pick one over the other, the other is still really good. 

[BrandX]

2 hours ago, 00Troy00 said:

How does Claws compare with Street Justice?

 

Pretty sure StJ out did Claws in Single Target, but I'm not 100% on it.  Claws for sure out does StJ on AOE, which imo is sucky damage wise, but Spinning Strike animation is pure love 🙂

 

Also, getting that huge POW from Crushing Uppercut (especially with it being able to slot 2 Purple Damage Procs) is just so satisfying 🙂

 

For me Street Justice and Energy Melee are the best two Scrapper Primaries.  Some of that has to do with my love of the Pom Poms and StJ's animations I admit.

[Six-Six]

First off, I'd say any and all of the scrapper powers or power combos are solo-able. 2/5ths of my 100+ toons have reached 50 on their own save for the occasional TF (because group chaos is fun). If you're planning to go at it on your own, then have a decent line up of ST attacks vs AoE. You're alone, so you don't want to over do the aggro. ST attacks will be of better use when you get to EBs and AVs. Speaking of tough bosses, you might want to look into some epics that have some sort of hold.

Also, are you looking to solo vanilla? +4x8? Running solo, my personal sweet spot is at +3x2 at around level 25-30 ish as it gives the optimum XP per hour for me. something less wouldn't offer enough challenge, anything more would eat up my limited game time per day. But that's just me.

Next is the armour. I think Dark, Bio and SR are the best for me, not sure if they will be for you. some armours will tend to be end guzzlers, so at low levels, you may have to postpone taking some powers until your recovery has been sorted out. higher levels it is rarely a problem.

Inf should not be an issue. there are cheap sets that give very nice stats and set bonuses. in the same light, some purples are over-rated. In any case, you get about 20+ mil inf total from 1-50 without even touching the AH. Now this is chump change. But you also get about 80 recipe drops (whites not counted). This plus converters should cover your needs.

Finally, I think character creation is an intimate and personal thing. It will be your toon. moreover, your preference will choose which power sets/combo appeals to you the most (I like guns and weapons vs glowing hands), and your personal play style will dictate which powers you pick and how you enhance them.

Good luck. May you find your perfect toon... or at least one that will ultimately lead you to the perfect one.

[Linea]

Angel Hornet is EnM/EnA and took out a Solo Vicious ASF (Difficulty 3 of 5). 

I'd say she's probably the one with the strongest of both offense and defense.  EnA to maximize armors with T9 stacking and Demonic for the crashes, and EnM to maximize ST damage.  She runs about 400 dps on the heavily armored 801 build.  She should run 600+ dps on an offensive proc build, but I've never built her one.  Her stalker counterpart's offensive build was 600+ on the test server.   I chose scrapper instead because, stalker AoE is less than Scrapper, and I was looking to be more overall useful with more AoE and actually /wanted/ the scrapper's weak taunt, even if it meant I was a bit more squishy due to pulling more aggro.  I chose the stalker (over the scrapper) on the stalker project specifically because I didn't want to pull aggro with taunt, but paired it with StJ to improve the stalker frame AoE performance over EnM.  Same Idea, two different ways of approaching it.

Kat/Bio is a real favorite of mine, but objectively many builds beat her in both offense, defense, and combined offense/defense.  I'm just extremely fond of Kat, and Bio is a really nice, and offensive oriented, match for it. DB/Bio is another option, similar to Kat, but a variation on ST/AoE mix.  A bit more offense overall, and a tad squishier.  Favorites aren't always the 'best'.  I have about equal numbers of Kat/ and Dual Pistols/, and each of those has more than all other sets combined.  Favorites don't have to make sense.

 

Armor Types (Armor Recommendations):

Defense Armor: EnA (Any AT), Inv/ and SD/ as the Tank Alternatives.    
Resist Armor: RadA (Brutes and Tanks Only).   
Heal Armor: Bio (Any AT, paired with a Defensive Weapon).   
Offense Armor: SD, Bio

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Linea

[StriderIV]

1 hour ago, Linea said:

Angel Hornet is EnM/EnA and took out a Solo Vicious ASF (Difficulty 3 of 5). 

I'd say she's probably the one with the strongest of both offense and defense.  EnA to maximize armors with T9 stacking and Demonic for the crashes, and EnM to maximize ST damage.  She runs about 400 dps on the heavily armored 801 build.  She should run 600+ dps on an offensive proc build, but I've never built her one.  Her stalker counterpart's offensive build was 600+ on the test server.   I chose scrapper instead because, stalker AoE is less than Scrapper, and I was looking to be more overall useful with more AoE and actually /wanted/ the scrapper's weak taunt, even if it meant I was a bit more squishy due to pulling more aggro.  I chose the stalker (over the scrapper) on the stalker project specifically because I didn't want to pull aggro with taunt, but paired it with StJ to improve the stalker frame AoE performance over EnM.  Same Idea, two different ways of approaching it.

Kat/Bio is a real favorite of mine, but objectively many builds beat her in both offense, defense, and combined offense/defense.  I'm just extremely fond of Kat, and Bio is a really nice, and offensive oriented, match for it. DB/Bio is another option, similar to Kat, but a variation on ST/AoE mix.  A bit more offense overall, and a tad squishier.  Favorites aren't always the 'best'.  I have about equal numbers of Kat/ and Dual Pistols/, and each of those has more than all other sets combined.  Favorites don't have to make sense.

 

Armor Types (Armor Recommendations):

Defense Armor: EnA (Any AT), Inv/ and SD/ as the Tank Alternatives.    
Resist Armor: RadA (Brutes and Tanks Only).   
Heal Armor: Bio (Any AT, paired with a Defensive Weapon).   
Offense Armor: SD, Bio

 

 

Thanks for all the info Linea. I have an EM/EnA Stalker myself, and it's one of my strongest heroes. EM/Bio seems like it'd hit like a truck as well.

[subbacultchas]

Give the new Stone Armor a shot, It has a lot of good tools to it, end recovery, regen, heal, max hp, damage proc as well as some nicely capped defenses and good resistances too.

I've been running a Claws/Stone scrapper for several weeks now, and it's definitely able to hold its own against most things, even at +4x8.

[Doomguide2005]

     I'd tweak my Claws/SR to bring her build into i27.   She was on Live (and will be again on HC once I've got a functional computer) a badass and able to solo and survive most anything this game could throw at her.

[Blackjoy]

On 12/28/2021 at 12:40 PM, Doomguide2005 said:

     I'd tweak my Claws/SR to bring her build into i27.   She was on Live (and will be again on HC once I've got a functional computer) a badass and able to solo and survive most anything this game could throw at her.

As someone who ran SR to 50 on Live, I have to say, it's got to be one of the worst sets to level up.  Originally, the passives were only extra defense and after months, or maybe it was years of my pointing out that SR needed another type of protection, and that it should be resistance, they finally added some resistance.

 

I ran DM/SR.  I don't know how anyone survived a primary with no heal and no endurance recovery on SR.  You also have zero AoE protection....I mean zero...until like mid-30s or so.  I mean yeah, SR can withstand an alpha after you've fully slotted it up, but before that, I don't think the set has aged well.  I am now playing a Staff/Willpower scrapper and I mean...there's just no contest.  In my 20's I can take on a group of four oranges and come out with full health and nearly full endurance.  I don't have health or stamina slotted.  If I get down to  half-health, I can roll to the next fight and be back at full by the end.  I have Hasten, but I find I don't use it because I'm n no rush.  I have no reservation about using my endo-heavy AoEs on single targets, because my blue bar is like always near full.

 

I compare that with a SJ/Shield Brute who has defense fully slotted and I take a beating.  I have to take a knee quite a bit with Shield.  Some of that may be on account of the Brute needed to ramp up on damage, and I don't have more than one or two slots in any of the attacks.  But still, Willpower is just way better on health and stamina, by a wide margin.  

 

I'm running another DM/SR and it's bringing back all those old memories.  Endurance is a constant struggle and I don't have Evasion yet.  The should have have added some +recovery to Quickness or some +Regen.  I still love SR conceptually, but QoL, WP is just so much easier to solo with.

 

If there's any real weakness to WP, it might be similar to /Regen in that you get hit by status effects and gets some cascade failure.  I mean, Sappers are going to own you., and getting  Tsoo'd with Siphon Speed is kind of sucky.  But between Shield, Regen, Willpower, and SR, I give WP the nod by a car length. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Blackjoy

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

As someone who ran SR to 50 on Live, I have to say, it's got to be one of the worst sets to level up.

 

SR is a painful drag on the way up for scrappers, less so for brutes, but freaking awesome for tanks. At the end of that road, however, I place it just behind shield. As they say, late blooming but the bloom is good.

[Doomguide2005]

8 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

SR is a painful drag on the way up for scrappers, less so for brutes, but freaking awesome for tanks. At the end of that road, however, I place it just behind shield. As they say, late blooming but the bloom is good.

This^

Spent ~750 hours in i3 and i4 leveling to 50 (my first way back then).  Spent the next 3000+ hours at 50 wrecking things growing in power(creep).  Knew she was powerful not while soloing AVs in Jenkins arc or taking on +4/×8 Malta and Rularuu (etc.), but when I realized she was leaping headlong into +4/×8 mobs that I knew had AVs in them without bothering to 'find' them first via tab target or even visually (i.e. an AV was just another foe in the mob ... it wouldn't kill her, it would just be left after the chaff died).

[Blackjoy]

12 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

SR is a painful drag on the way up for scrappers, less so for brutes, but freaking awesome for tanks. At the end of that road, however, I place it just behind shield. As they say, late blooming but the bloom is good.

Hey Bill,  I remember your handle from Live.  I think I joined in I4.  I know I was on Live before they totally redid Regen.

 

Why is it better for tanks on the way up, do the numbers start off higher for a  Tank?  As far as putting it just behind Shield, yeah...and I would put Shield last 🙂.  On scrappers/brutes/tanks, I haven't played EA, Ninjitsu, Stone, Fire, Ice, Bio.  I've only had a smattering of DA and Inv.  But my Shield Brute was actually almost as bad as SR up through 20's.  Now that I've got it slotted with IOs, it's passible. I don't have to take a knee after every fight, maybe every third fight.

 

I think a lot of how people perceive the sets is based on the context under which they play them ie. solo, teamed, primary, etc.   I think a lot of the comparative discussion, people are mixing in how the set plays with Sets and all kinds of Procs.   As mentioned, with Elude, you can tank anything except Psi.   But go fight Council at lvl 20 and you'll get grenaded back to the hospital. 

 

Brute SJ/Shield feels way worse to me compared to scrapper DM/SR or my scrapper, but I think that's because of DM.  scr Claws/Regen felt better than B SJ/Sh.   I do think SJ has a fair bit of damage mitigation via all the KD and Diz.  More than Claws as I recall.  Staff has even more KD than SJ or at least it feels that way because I was able to slot a Proc KDs from SBB or wherever I got it. 

 

DM is a huge boost to survivability, especially for sets that don't have +regen, +heal, or +recovery.  And even for those sets, the -to Hit is like adding +Def, so at least in Melee, you last longer.

 

I'll have to look at Bio, but it would seem to be a variation on WP mixed with Shield.   Curious what people think EA plays like.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Blackjoy

[Resuna]

On 12/20/2021 at 12:52 PM, Linea said:

Angel Hornet is EnM/EnA and took out a Solo Vicious ASF (Difficulty 3 of 5). 

 

 

 

 

Would you mind sharing your EnM/EnA build?

[Bill Z Bubba]

25 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

Why is it better for tanks on the way up, do the numbers start off higher for a  Tank?

 

Yup. 44.46% defense to all positions by level 19 with 3 defense SOs in the 6 SR powers + combat jumping. You get evasion at 12 and lucky at 18.

 

31 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

But my Shield Brute was actually almost as bad as SR up through 20's.  Now that I've got it slotted with IOs, it's passible. I don't have to take a knee after every fight, maybe every third fight.

 

I think that's why we're seeing things very differently. I focus on 50+ builds as I've mostly given up on leveling anything these days. My shield/nrg tank's last ITF solo time, after the phalanx fighting fix, at max diff with no insps/temps/amplifiers or faceplants was around 1:26, if I'm remembering correctly. (Found one screenshot at 1:30 but I remember beating that at some point.)

 

Yes, I balance around IOs because they're available and easy to get. I may PL a build to 35 and load it up with basics and the normal uniques to get a better feel for it but for the most part everything I build follows the same rules if possible: Permahasten, very tight attack chains, softcap defense where I can, hardcap damres where I can, crank up HP, then regen. Specifically in that order. One of the biggest reasons I've found for this is just how many things in game I get to just plain ignore like stacked debuffs and end drains for no other reason that they never land. Whenever I've played sets like rad or fire armor, I've been dismayed by this.

 

Right now, on scrappers at least, I'll always prefer the defense sets over the resist sets and do so entirely because of the 75% damres cap, with shield and sr leading the way mostly because of all the DDR they provide. I don't touch ice armor on anything because of its low DDR. And regen? It's at the bottom of the pack for me.

 

Last note: I haven't taken elude since IOs were added to the game.

[Bill Z Bubba]

But if I were to solo level from 1 to 50 (properly, not like with that swipe-only/inv scrapper,) I could see going dark/shield. Tons of synergy there.

 

Late edit: ah, hell, I ain't got nuthin better to do. dark/stone scrapper comin up.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[StriderIV]

42 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

But if I were to solo level from 1 to 50 (properly, not like with that swipe-only/inv scrapper,) I could see going dark/shield. Tons of synergy there.

 

Late edit: ah, hell, I ain't got nuthin better to do. dark/stone scrapper comin up.

Let me know how that Dark/Stone goes for you Bill. I’ve been interested in the combo myself, torn between running it on a Scrapper or Tanker.

[Blackjoy]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Yup. 44.46% defense to all positions by level 19 with 3 defense SOs in the 6 SR powers + combat jumping. You get evasion at 12 and lucky at 18.

Yeah, that would make a totally different experience.  I have to say, while I like the fact that the gates have all been unlocked, I can see why they never gave SR to tanks on Live.  It's fun to get access, but it does undermine aspects of the game.  The TFs I join from time to time are just strait out sprints (Synapse is still painfully long). There's really no sense of apprehension or concern.  Sure, a blaster or defender might pull aggro and die because the Tank ran off to pull a third spawn,  or on the low levels if things get stupid with aggro, but there's no need for any tactics, which is too bad for all those people who are playing this first here.   I miss walking up hill both ways back in i4

Edited December 30, 2021 by Blackjoy

[Blackjoy]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

But if I were to solo level from 1 to 50 (properly, not like with that swipe-only/inv scrapper,) I could see going dark/shield. Tons of synergy there.

 

Late edit: ah, hell, I ain't got nuthin better to do. dark/stone scrapper comin up.

I run my DM/SR scrapper with a DM/Shield Brute played by a friend.  It feels like we are pretty even in terms of survivability.  Now in our 20's, I can see I do more damage on average, but if we get rolling, he quickly catches up.  DM compliments everything pretty well.  It does suffer a bit on accuracy.  CoT are particularly tough at this range on account of the having lots of  ToHit debuff and being resistant to negative energy. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

15 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

I run my DM/SR scrapper with a DM/Shield Brute played by a friend.  It feels like we are pretty even in terms of survivability.  Now in our 20's, I can see I do more damage on average, but if we get rolling, he quickly catches up.  DM compliments everything pretty well.  It does suffer a bit on accuracy.  CoT are particularly tough at this range on account of the having lots of  ToHit debuff and being resistant to negative energy. 

 

Kinda to show just how different things are these days....

 

Dark melee/stone armor scrapper solo to 50. Gonna keep a general log.
Entered game, gave myself 50mil inf, 8hrs dbl xp and all 3 amps
Used contacts starting with Azuria after street sweeping to lvl 4.
Using SOs, improved when they turned red. Bumped diff to +0/x3 w/ bosses at 6.
+0/x4 at 8.
After 1:25 hrs, I'm lvl 10 and have a new contact in Skyway with one chance of faceplanting that didn't happen when I jumped into a group of CoT with a madness mage, 2 life mages and a bunch of the demonling things.

I'd forgotten how many missions handed out by normal contacts are nothing but go hunt X# of Y.

 

While I don't necessarily miss taking 4 months to get to lvl 50 playing 16 hrs a day, an argument can be made that we went well past easy mode a looooong time ago.

 

Ran to contact in Skyway, she sends me back to KR. Yea... there's a reason I stopped bothering. 🙂

Edited December 30, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Jaxman100]

5 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I don't touch ice armor on anything because of its low DDR.

 

While the low DDR is limiting, I do greatly enjoy my Claws/Ice Scrapper.  But at the upper levels I can swap between Icy Bastion, Rune of Protection, and Barrier to keep the resistances up.

Maybe someday there will be a way to pair a version of Claws with Shield and I'll have a new favorite toon.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Jaxman100 said:

Maybe someday there will be a way to pair a version of Claws with Shield and I'll have a new favorite toon.

 

I'd play it.