Should Katana use SR, WP or Ninj?

[drgantz]

This will be a Natural Katana Scrapper, so I don't want any secondaries that have any special effects.

I'm thinking that SR is good, but might be overkill with Divine Avalanche and Weave.
WP would be good with DA and Weave.
Ninj might be good, but doesn't have much DDR.

 

Which do you think is best?

[Gamlain]

SR builds to be always soft-capped at every position in late game, so the assistance of DA is largely lost except against things that have large accuracy bonuses or over level; in the early to mid game however, DA should help shore up the set's randomness due to not yet being softcapped considerably.  You'll still be vulnerable to AOE as a scrap untill quite high level, so fair warning about that.  You will have end management issues, as SR has no end management at all and no heal either; going three powers deep into the medicine pool may resolve these issues (I hope so, but haven't got there on my /SR yet, but uninterruptible aid self that gives a recovery buff and Feild medic giving a end redux /should/ do so; /SR isn't /DA anyhow.

 

WP will be good, and stacked Divine Avalanche will eventually get you to the point of softcapping melee/leathal defense, significantly increasing the secondary's mix of other abilities. It's End management comes in fairly late, but honestly, I find that there is no low level cure for end management issues.

 

Ninjitsu will be somewhat  less good at resisting defense debuffs but easiler to softcap all positions with in some ways (Fewer powers to slot out to do it mainly), has a heal and has a click end power amongst it's other tricks. it has as noted little dr, so you will be depending on other sources for that. All three are pretty good; Personally I would lean slightly /nin themeatically but if you're aiming for Samurai, /WP is probably more thematic.

[aethereal]

12 minutes ago, Gamlain said:

SR builds to be always soft-capped at every position in late game, so the assistance of DA is largely lost except against things that have large accuracy bonuses or over level;

 

To hit bonuses, not accuracy bonuses.  Defense-beyond-softcap doesn't give you any more mitigation to high-accuracy enemies.  And because of that, you need to be fighting +6 enemies before they start getting +to-hit through the purple patch (at which point being overcap would help you, but also man are you real sure you want to fight +6 enemies?).

[Doomguide2005]

     By late game I'd expect DA to be rarely used by SR and used as a counter to defense debuffs for WP and Nin.  I wouldn't expect or plan to use DA to reach the cap on any of them except maybe early on while leveling.    

I keep hearing SR is rough on endurance.  I've personally never found it so at least no more so than other sets lacking a QR type power.  When I think of heavy endurance use my mind goes to Dark Armor (pre Touch of the Nictus) long before SR.  Even if you do find any set endurance heavy Amps, base empowerments and special IOs can usually deal with that ... and then there's availability of SO's across all levels these days.  I'm highly biased, SR is always the best choice 🙄.

[arcane]

I never bother with Parry or Divine Avalanche. Attack chain DPS killers, both of em.

[SomeGuy]

DA will be pointless with SR and NIN. Good thing really if you ask me. Both SR and NIN for scraps are pretty good, the reasons have been covered why. Don't think you could go wrong with either. I'm personally a fan of Defense based sets over everything else for scraps.

[BrandX]

I'd skip DA on SR and Ninja and possibly WP if you've got the defense up S/L Defense.

 

Made a DB/WP (softcapped S/L Defense) that soloed ITF without Incarnate powers, so lack of DA isn't going to hurt.  I do suggest taking WP Tier 9 and knowing when to use it, if you do take WP.  It's a power that gets hate, but imo it's not a OMG emergency button, it's a know when to use it button.

[ScarySai]

Of the three, I'd go for ninja.

 

Though, I definitely prefer a taunt aura for katana. The dot on lotus tends to freak out the ai out with nothing to tether them to you.

[Blackjoy]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

I'd skip DA on SR and Ninja and possibly WP if you've got the defense up S/L Defense.

 

Made a DB/WP (softcapped S/L Defense) that soloed ITF without Incarnate powers, so lack of DA isn't going to hurt.  I do suggest taking WP Tier 9 and knowing when to use it, if you do take WP.  It's a power that gets hate, but imo it's not a OMG emergency button, it's a know when to use it button.

What + did you solo it at? +4?  Did you find lack of comparative DDR to be a problem?

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, Blackjoy said:

What + did you solo it at? +4?  Did you find lack of comparative DDR to be a problem?

 

This was back on live.  It wasn't +4, as I was solo and this was back on live.

 

However, +4 on a /WP Scrapper...that's just ouch waiting to happen without Incarnates (as I was going without Incarnate power or inspirations when I did the run solo) because WP does lack strong DDR and the -ToHit Debuff it does have isn't going to cover it that much.

[UltraAlt]

20 hours ago, drgantz said:

This will be a Natural Katana Scrapper, so I don't want any secondaries that have any special effects.

I'm thinking that SR is good, but might be overkill with Divine Avalanche and Weave.
WP would be good with DA and Weave.
Ninj might be good, but doesn't have much DDR.

 

Which do you think is best?

 

The one that fits best with your character conception.

 

I tend to go with Super Reflexes or Ninjitsu with Katana, but that is because I'm making ninja characters.

Ninjitsu has the Stealth component build in, so i don't have to use the stealth pool if I go that route.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Keep in mind that DA is +melee defense and +lethal defense.  In my mind it will work better with a positional defensive system (like SR or ninjitsu) than with a typed defense (like Willpower's defensive powers) since it only covers one of the lethal/smashing duo.

[Stormwalker]

First off, you can't go wrong with any of the above.  They all have their advantages.

 

/SR and /Nin don't need DA's mitigation (once you get to high level/soft-cap, that is; it's still useful at lower levels), but that means you don't need DA.  Might still be useful in Incarnate content, which has a higher soft-cap (though if you run Barrier, as I do on my Claws/SR, that will easily cover you for defense in Incarnate content).  Not needing DA means you get a much better attack chain than those who are depending on it.

 

Willpower, you have the option.  You can go for smash/lethal soft-cap and not use DA at all, or you can focus on soft-capping energy/negative defense and hard-capping smash/lethal resist, and then get the added bonus of lethal (and melee, which with DA might actually be higher than your smash defense)  defense via DA.  This is the approach I took on my Staff/WP who has been running on 0x8 since level 40 and doesn't seem to have problems with any enemy group she has faced so far except for Banished Pantheon (who eat her alive for some reason; I haven't bothered to work out why and figure out how to fix it yet; I'll worry about that after she hits 50).

 

So, you've got lots of options.

 

Katana/Dark Armor also happens to work very well; I have a friend with a Kat/DA that is pretty close to unkillable and completely laughs at some enemy factions that cause problems for most builds (notably, Carnies).