Street Justice and Willpower or Super Reflexes?

[00Troy00]

The title pretty well lays it out.

 

I'm looking to start a new scrapper and want Street Justice as my primary, but am bouncing back and forth between the two secondaries.

 

Yes, I understand that "best," is a relative term, but I'd appreciate all opinions (especially if you san explain why).

 

Thank you in advance.

[Thrax]

My new scrapper is street justice and sr. Sr is more challenging leveling up but is better once you’re topped out. They both good though. 

[Doomguide2005]

^ This

Willpower is a very smooth ride to 50 and beyond.  SR I think is overall stronger at its peek but I'm definitely biased as well and in most content you won't be able to tell.  Heavy debuffers can be very demanding on a WP, SR won't have to worry.  You can't debuff what you can't hit.

[Bill Z Bubba]

What they said.

[Blackjoy]

Having played by /SR and /WP to 50, the answer to your question is context driven.  To put it another way, where do you care most about your experience? Solo, in teams, lvl 20, lvl 50, on ITF/BAF/TinPex?  Both sets have huge swings in their perceived efficacy and it really matters whether you have funds or you are going slumming it?

 

Let's assume you aren't funded, and you are fighting at a +x level where your accuracy is above 75%.  In my experience:

•   /SR is essentially crap from about 25-35.  Endurance will be a big issue, SJ isn't helping you out more than an other secondary, and you don't have much in the way of AoE protection. 
  • Your +DEF isn't at cap or even near it.
  • The scaling resists do nothing against toxic and psi
  • Big Elite Boss hits will annihilate you
  • You are pretty good against alpha strikes and can go through some fights and barely get touched.
  • Practice Brawler on Auto can feel annoying..but, it can be cast when mezzed.
    • No Fear protection
• /WP is cruise mode through about the those same levels.  
  • You finish fights with full health and endo
  • you've got a mix of mitigation so if one thing is defeated, you are still getting some mitigation
  • Like /SR /WP is toggle and forget
    • Fear protection
  • Lower +DEF means you do get debuffed more.

 

 

At around lvl 35, /SR starts to come on stronger because of some convergence of factors:

1. You've most likely started adding more +DEF from set IOs and off-AT.   It's a universal rule that every iota of stacking mitigation is more beneficial than the last iota.  So that last bit of +DEF you can add from like Combat Jumping or even Stealth, can dramatically increase  your survival time as you get near the cap (there's nothing magical about the cap, it's just the in-game limit)
2. Your average time to kill your targets starts to dramatically decrease due to slotting and having money for enhancements. 
   1. At 40, my Savage/Regen can do +2x0 (EDIT: I can do +3x0) spawns with nothing but Fast Healing and Reconstruction, and most a third of the time I don't need Reconstruction.  The point is I'm killing stuff so fast, my secondary is not a factor.
3. When you combine #1 & #2, /SR's ability survive the alpha strike makes it outperform other sets that have a higher steady-state survival.  In other words, you last long enough to reduce the incoming DPS to the inflection point. 
   1. But..this doesn't work against AVs because you cannot reduce the DPS until you kill the AV, so other sets do better against single hard targets.
   2. Also, because of so much of /SR's mitigation is +DEF, any high level mobs that have +to Hit above the cap, punish /SR extra hard.  See #1.

 

By 50 you're bringing on Incarnates and set and purple set bonuses and you are probably getting 50% of your mitigation or more, from things not your secondary.

 

Reading the forums, the majority/overwhelming opinions on ATs are based on people's experience with their builds at lvl 50.  So their perception is highly skewed by their build and what they've been able to do with it and not from an objective comparison of the sets.

 

Other thoughts

1. /SR is much easier to slot/build. Because /WP has a lot of mitigation mechanics, there's going to be a wider variation in performance based on system mastery.
2. /SR has a much more variable experience.  You can go from full to dead in two hits against hard targets.  /WP has, ime, a more predictable decline.
   1. /SR's resistance goes a long way in slowing down its mean-time-to-failure, but if you're fighting +4s, Bosses, Elite Boses, AVs, and Giant Monsters, can punch right through it.

TLDR; /WP has a better QoL leveling up. As you level up, /SR starts to feel like it can  punch above its weight class because it survives alphas a little better due to pool powers.  By 50, it's not about your secondary, but about your build.  I would imagine /WP can get close to +DEF cap, especially combined with it's -to hit aura. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Stormwalker]

As others have said:

 

WP is easier to level until about 35, which is when SR really starts to come into its own.  This is when SR actually gets its AoE defense toggle (which really, really, really ought to come earlier!)  Also, WP is easier on end after level 20 because of Quick Recovery.  That said, once you get to level 35, /SR is generally a stronger set.  Also, while /SR doesn't offer as much of an offensive boost as Shield or Energy Aura, it does offer a small chunk of free +recharge in Quickness, as well as free movement speed.

 

Note that SR, being primarily focused on defense as it is, has a few specific villain groups you need to watch out for.  Now, Rulaaru you aren't going to see much unless you go looking for them, so they're not so much a factor, but Devouring Earth with Quartz emanators can be very dangerous if you don't kill the Quartz really fast.  That said, my primary bane in the 40-50 range as /SR is Nemesis, because of Vengeance stacking.  Of course, if you're running at +0/x1, this will never be a problem as a single stack of Vengeance isn't an issue.  It only becomes a problem when you start facing much larger spawns with multiple lieutenants that can provide multiple stacks of Vengeance.  Even then, as long as you are careful to weed out the bosses and minions before you kill the lt.'s, it's generally not an issue... it's just something you have to be aware of.

 

By contrast, /SR completely laughs at the faction that the resistance and regeneration sets (including /WP) really hate in level 35-50 content, that being Malta.  If they can't hit you, they can't debuff you, and they can't drain your endurance, and for this reason SR has a very easy time with Malta compared to Willpower.  I can attest to this personally as Malta are actually one of my favorite factions to fight on my /SR, and I got spoiled by it... when my DB/WP scrapper got into the 40's, I discovered that Sappers are a vastly more dire threat to /WP than they are to /SR.

 

Actually, there's another reason why /SR doesn't have to worry about Malta so much, and that comes down to one of the little quirks of /SR (a quirk that is shared by Shield Defense, incidentally).  In /SR, your mez protection is not a toggle power.  It's a long-duration click.  This can be a little bit of a hassle in that you'll probably have to devote your autofire to it, which means you can't set Hasten on autofire and will have to remember to hit Hasten manually when it comes up.  That's a minor annoyance, though, in comparison to its benefit, which is this:  getting detoggled on /SR doesn't drop your mez protection.  So, even if Mr. Sapper does manage to roll his 5% hit chance two or three times in a row (I have seen it happen) and steal all your end, causing your toggles to drop?  You still have mez protection.  If you can pop a couple of purples (or an Incarnate power like Barrier) to bridge the gap in defense until you can get your toggles back up, you can keep on fighting like nothing happened.  Or you can just pop a blue and hit Elude and not even worry about your toggles (just don't forget to wait for the crash after you clear the spawn if you do that).  By contrast, on my /WP I find that if I get detoggled fighting a pack of Malta, I am immediately held and then pummeled into oblivion before I can get Indomitable Will back up or pop Strength of Will.

 

So, every set has its advantages and disadvantages.  /SR handles some villain groups better than /WP, and /WP handles some villain groups better than /SR.  That said, I think in the overall balance of things, /SR is stronger than /WP at high level.  That said, /WP is easier to level, and is a reasonably solid set all around.  /WP also comes with a taunt aura, albeit a weak one, which is a nice thing to have on any scrapper with the way enemies like to run away these days. 

 

Something else you should probably be aware of is that your own personal playstyle will also influence your experrience with each set..  My personal preference is for /SR, to the extent that when my DB/WP scrapper hit level 41, my "I should have rolled this character as an /SR" impulse hit the breaking point and I rolled up a DB/SR.  The DB/WP is now at level 42, and the DB/SR is now at level 31, which says something about the relative play time allotted to each since then.  That said, both of the DB's are hoverscrappers, and /SR offers a significant advantage for a hoverscrapper in that Quickness boosts flight speed (and can be slotted for flight speed), and that was a non-trivial factor in the decision.  Mostly, though, /SR just feels better to me.  And that's something you can only decide for yourself after trying the sets.

 

Regardless of which you choose, you'll get a pretty strong character out of it and you'll learn how you feel about whichever set you choose, which will inform your future choices.

 

(And it should be noted, I don't hate /WP by any means.  I have a Katana/WP and, in fact, a Street Justice/WP that I quite enjoy, though both are still low level, and a Kinetic Melee/Wp at level 31 who is a lot of fun even if Kinetic Melee has abysmal damage output.  It's just my DB/WP that gave me that "I coulda had an /SR" feeling.).

Edited June 14, 2022 by Stormwalker