Help me pick my forever scrapper.

[provoked]

A little background here. I am an altoholic. I start a toon and by 12-20 I find an issue and reroll. Additionally, I have never gone through everything in the game (accolades, most mid to high level tfs, arcs, etc.). 

 

My goal: pick a character and level them up while doing everything I have never done. Side note, this will be mostly solo due to when I play. 

 

Criteria: I have running into end issues. It's probably the biggest thing that makes me reroll. Also, I'd like to stick to IOs initially and then fill it out with sets once I hit 50 and start really pushing difficulty. 

 

Some combos I'm thinking about:

 

DM/SD: it seems cool but it also seems hard on end usage and that kind of turns me off. 

 

Axe/SD: see above. 

 

MA/SD: seems interesting and very survivable. Never played MA so not sure. 

 

DB/?: Dual blades seem cool but when I played some katana it didn't "feel" crunchy as in the attack effects/sounds "felt" weak. 

 

Also I am open to any other suggestions. This was just a quick thought on my lunch break lol. 

 

Anyways, I appreciate any replies!

[BuiltDifferent5]

I’ve had this dilemma myself, but if I were to steer you towards any of the above combos, it would be DM/Shield or DB/Energy Aura.

 

DM/Shield is a great Jack of all trades. Once you have Dark Consumption, endurance should be fine. Shield always is fun with SC, and DM has a nice bag of tricks.

 

DB/EnA is a great combo as well. EnA pumps up the recharge, which DB loves. It also has an endurance clicky, which is nice.

 

DB comes down to if you like the style of its animations. I’d recommend trying one out on test or just playing with it in costume creator. I for one dig them.

[provoked]

1 hour ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

I’ve had this dilemma myself, but if I were to steer you towards any of the above combos, it would be DM/Shield or DB/Energy Aura.

 

DM/Shield is a great Jack of all trades. Once you have Dark Consumption, endurance should be fine. Shield always is fun with SC, and DM has a nice bag of tricks.

 

DB/EnA is a great combo as well. EnA pumps up the recharge, which DB loves. It also has an endurance clicky, which is nice.

 

DB comes down to if you like the style of its animations. I’d recommend trying one out on test or just playing with it in costume creator. I for one dig them.

EnA is interesting. I guess another thing I should clarify is I am not a huge fan of click heavy secondaries. I am an old man in gamer years and I find more enjoyment out of spamming attacks instead of managing a million clickies. 

 

For reference, my main back in the live days (think launch) was a fire/kin and it worked perfect for caffeine heavy gaming sessions. Now I tend to have a few drinks while gaming so... Yeah. 🙂

[nihilii]

For what it's worth, EnA is mostly passive. It has two main clicks: the heal that gives you endurance reduction, and the endurance drain. You could get away putting the heal on auto (essentially treating it as regen + conserve power), and using the end drain only whenever your blue bar is hurting.

 

Throwing ideas out there:

 

- Energy Melee is a good endurance friendly primary, thanks to Energy Transfer costing 0 endurance. Even if sappers drain you without respite, you can keep spamming ET.

- Bio Armor overflows with endurance management. Recovery passive at level 1, potential enhancement of that passive at level 10. Then there's DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura if you want even more end. OK, these are clicks again. But DNA Siphon can be used as an attack, and you could conceivably ignore Parasitic Aura and even Ablative Carapace, and end up at roughly the same performance as Willpower. Not that I would suggest outright *skipping* these powers, but you could approach it from a perspective of - it's there if I really really need to use them, but I don't have to obsess about it.

Coming back to BuiltDifferent's suggestion, DB/EnA really seems like a strong pick for your goals. DB can run the Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals attack chain on low recharge while leveling. This full chain is available by level 22, and it's fairly endurance efficient because the Attack Vitals combo is essentially bonus damage you get for free.

 

/EnA is also cool because it's fairly comprehensive in covering defense, some resistance, some healing... You end up with a well-rounded character that doesn't require active management to keep standing.

Edited April 5, 2023 by nihilii

[provoked]

2 hours ago, nihilii said:

For what it's worth, EnA is mostly passive. It has two main clicks: the heal that gives you endurance reduction, and the endurance drain. You could get away putting the heal on auto (essentially treating it as regen + conserve power), and using the end drain only whenever your blue bar is hurting.

 

Throwing ideas out there:

 

- Energy Melee is a good endurance friendly primary, thanks to Energy Transfer costing 0 endurance. Even if sappers drain you without respite, you can keep spamming ET.

- Bio Armor overflows with endurance management. Recovery passive at level 1, potential enhancement of that passive at level 10. Then there's DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura if you want even more end. OK, these are clicks again. But DNA Siphon can be used as an attack, and you could conceivably ignore Parasitic Aura and even Ablative Carapace, and end up at roughly the same performance as Willpower. Not that I would suggest outright *skipping* these powers, but you could approach it from a perspective of - it's there if I really really need to use them, but I don't have to obsess about it.

Coming back to BuiltDifferent's suggestion, DB/EnA really seems like a strong pick for your goals. DB can run the Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals attack chain on low recharge while leveling. This full chain is available by level 22, and it's fairly endurance efficient because the Attack Vitals combo is essentially bonus damage you get for free.

 

/EnA is also cool because it's fairly comprehensive in covering defense, some resistance, some healing... You end up with a well-rounded character that doesn't require active management to keep standing.

 

Hmm. EnA sounds very attractive. Do you think it would hold up in end game (+4/x8) type content ? DB seems cool and is a set I never got to play with as it was introduced after I took a long break from CoH.

[nihilii]

I think EnA can definitely hold up in +4/x8. It is one of the beefier sets for survivability, almost like an alternate Invulnerability.

DB is more in the middle of the pack (in my opinion), but as a Scrapper that's still respectable damage.

[BrandX]

Get IOs, get the Accolades, your End usage will be taken care of.  

[provoked]

So in my current testing - I have been messing with an EM/SD... does this hold up well because as of right now... I think I might be in love.

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, provoked said:

So in my current testing - I have been messing with an EM/SD... does this hold up well because as of right now... I think I might be in love.

 

Softcapped defenses.  The best ST DPS.  Shield Charge to go with Whirling Hands.  The combo is solid.

I went with the Rebirth Destiny.  Didn't feel I really needed the heal, but it's great to have imo.

[provoked]

7 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

Softcapped defenses.  The best ST DPS.  Shield Charge to go with Whirling Hands.  The combo is solid.

I went with the Rebirth Destiny.  Didn't feel I really needed the heal, but it's great to have imo.

 

Out of curiosity, would you mind sharing the build if you have one handy? I always fail at proper building. I'd be super nice to have an idea of what I am doing since I haven't really played melee much in CoH.

[BrandX]

9 minutes ago, provoked said:

 

Out of curiosity, would you mind sharing the build if you have one handy? I always fail at proper building. I'd be super nice to have an idea of what I am doing since I haven't really played melee much in CoH.

 

I ran Shield/EM.  Scrapper would come out a bit differently, and would depend on if you wanted to add in Moonbeam for best ST DPS.

[Greldek]

Shield defense is known for endurance issues, and in my experience the IO's like panacea, miracle, and performance shifter don't make up for it. On my axe/shield i'm running all those and have stamina 3 slotted, and still have to run the recovery serum from p2w on cooldown when i'm doing missions. I know it'll get better with incarnates but that's a ways away still.

 

IMO if you hate endurance issues you should try out rad armor. I personally think claws is the best scrapper set there is, but you can pick literally any set to go with it, and it will be fine. Even the super endurance hungry sets are fine with rad. On rad armor you essentially ignore defense, build for recharge, and resists, and use your absorb shield as much as possible, and that's how you survive. It's pretty active and fun.

 

If you're set on a defense based set I'd look to stone armor, its a little ugly, but if you find a nice concept it can work. again pick almost any attack set you want and it should work fine, stone has some built in endurance recovery as well. I can't think of an attack set that wouldn't work well with stone, but the almost comes from like if you chose elec melee, it's kinda a stinker set on scrappers so you probably won't have as much fun with it as other sets. Energy Aura would be my 2nd choice for a defense set leveling up solo and without help. Both SR and Shield are tougher to level IMO if you don't have INF to pour into them.

 

New axe is very fun, and i highly recommend playing it, but its super end hungry, and wants a lot of recharge to perform well, so you'll want to find an armor set that compliments that.

/rad, /stone, /NRG, /bio I think has some end recovery, /willpower, and kind of /electric, its a tough set to level with, doesn't get strong till built out IMO.  Willpower is very set it and forget it, you turn your toggles on and thats it. either you survive or dont. and it has a mix of res/defense. IDK i have a 50 claws/wp and it was fun to level up, but i lost interest in it at 50. And I would say bio has a slightly tougher learning curve than the others maybe. It's also an active set like /rad, where you use your absorbs and heals to keep alive, but it also has 3 stances most of the time as a scrapper you'll either be in damage (which makes you take more damage) or endurance stance, but this could also help you out, since you don't like endurance problems while leveling. Its also butt ugly.

 

People like to shit on staff, and its' true it's not a top performer, but its quite fun to use, it does lots of little numbers fast, not very good in the big hitter department compared to other sets, but it does have sky splitter which will give you some of those big crunchy hits. . But if you like the quick play and look of the animations its solid especially for a solo toon who hates end issues, as one of the stances helps with endurance recovery. And keep in mind no attack set is so bad it's unusable. There are plenty of 50's of every attack, and they do just fine running TF's and group content, and soloing. The min/maxers in this game go hard, and will declare something unplayable garbage because its not #1 in whatever random ass ranking they decided to use to determine what's #1.

 

I noticed you mentioned MA, it's fun i have an ma/rad brute, and an ma/shield scrapper both are fun, but again shield eats your blue bar prepare to use recovery serum all the time. and MA will work well with any of the other secondary sets i mentioned above. MA is a little end hungry as well because you attack so often with it. lots of quick strikes with short cooldowns.

 

I mean you could run ma/Wp, no clicks to worry about in the secondary (other than the self rez, if and when you would need it) and the t9. and it has built in recovery help.

 

IDK thats a lot of rambling but hopefully it helped some.

 

 

 

[provoked]

5 hours ago, Greldek said:

Shield defense is known for endurance issues, and in my experience the IO's like panacea, miracle, and performance shifter don't make up for it. On my axe/shield i'm running all those and have stamina 3 slotted, and still have to run the recovery serum from p2w on cooldown when i'm doing missions. I know it'll get better with incarnates but that's a ways away still.

 

IMO if you hate endurance issues you should try out rad armor. I personally think claws is the best scrapper set there is, but you can pick literally any set to go with it, and it will be fine. Even the super endurance hungry sets are fine with rad. On rad armor you essentially ignore defense, build for recharge, and resists, and use your absorb shield as much as possible, and that's how you survive. It's pretty active and fun.

 

If you're set on a defense based set I'd look to stone armor, its a little ugly, but if you find a nice concept it can work. again pick almost any attack set you want and it should work fine, stone has some built in endurance recovery as well. I can't think of an attack set that wouldn't work well with stone, but the almost comes from like if you chose elec melee, it's kinda a stinker set on scrappers so you probably won't have as much fun with it as other sets. Energy Aura would be my 2nd choice for a defense set leveling up solo and without help. Both SR and Shield are tougher to level IMO if you don't have INF to pour into them.

 

New axe is very fun, and i highly recommend playing it, but its super end hungry, and wants a lot of recharge to perform well, so you'll want to find an armor set that compliments that.

/rad, /stone, /NRG, /bio I think has some end recovery, /willpower, and kind of /electric, its a tough set to level with, doesn't get strong till built out IMO.  Willpower is very set it and forget it, you turn your toggles on and thats it. either you survive or dont. and it has a mix of res/defense. IDK i have a 50 claws/wp and it was fun to level up, but i lost interest in it at 50. And I would say bio has a slightly tougher learning curve than the others maybe. It's also an active set like /rad, where you use your absorbs and heals to keep alive, but it also has 3 stances most of the time as a scrapper you'll either be in damage (which makes you take more damage) or endurance stance, but this could also help you out, since you don't like endurance problems while leveling. Its also butt ugly.

 

People like to shit on staff, and its' true it's not a top performer, but its quite fun to use, it does lots of little numbers fast, not very good in the big hitter department compared to other sets, but it does have sky splitter which will give you some of those big crunchy hits. . But if you like the quick play and look of the animations its solid especially for a solo toon who hates end issues, as one of the stances helps with endurance recovery. And keep in mind no attack set is so bad it's unusable. There are plenty of 50's of every attack, and they do just fine running TF's and group content, and soloing. The min/maxers in this game go hard, and will declare something unplayable garbage because its not #1 in whatever random ass ranking they decided to use to determine what's #1.

 

I noticed you mentioned MA, it's fun i have an ma/rad brute, and an ma/shield scrapper both are fun, but again shield eats your blue bar prepare to use recovery serum all the time. and MA will work well with any of the other secondary sets i mentioned above. MA is a little end hungry as well because you attack so often with it. lots of quick strikes with short cooldowns.

 

I mean you could run ma/Wp, no clicks to worry about in the secondary (other than the self rez, if and when you would need it) and the t9. and it has built in recovery help.

 

IDK thats a lot of rambling but hopefully it helped some.

 

 

 

 

Honestly, I really liked Willpower but my biggest issue is that I hear it falls off at 50 and struggles with some of the harder content. Shield seems to be the sturdiest secondary from what I have seen and I do agree that it appears to be end heavy. 

 

Bio seems to be a top contender but definitely looks to be too click heavy for me. And when it comes to Rad, I already have a Rad/SS Tanker and I wasn't really into it.

 

I think for secondaries it seems to be coming down to SD or EnA since WP just doesn't seem like it will fit the bill late game.

[Ceejer]

Katana/EnA/Soul, while soloing and using normal IOs is good. Add some Translocation (Mystic Flight) to port to the next mob quickly. Rune for when you get more than one mob. Throw in some Fighting, Leadership (Maneuvers) or Flight (Hover) with some Hasten can give anyone a good case of Scrapperlock. 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Ceejer

[provoked]

To straight up ask the question - why does everyone steer away from willpower? My main goal is staying alive in TFs and soloing missions (preferable+4x8 if possible). Would willpower do it or does it just completely drop off at 50?

[SomeGuy]

Dual Blades, with enough recharge to run the optimal chain, WILL have end issues. Sweeping Strike cost a lot of end and if you're throwing a snipe in there...woo boy. But dead god. I have a DB/ENA and it just chews through stuff.

 

EM/RAD. Zero ZERO end issues (and good AOE with the targeted heal procced out, ground zero, and whirling hands). You can have an HP problem though if you use Energy Trasfer a lot. Luckily, Rad armor has a click heal.

 

DM is really really easy on End. Shield is not. So, seems like a good pairing. I personally like DM a lot, but definitely not for it's performance. It's at the end for ST performance and you have to be pretty crafty to get good AOE out of it. Shield is a good AOE boost out of the box without the need to be crafty in your build.

 

Don't dismiss Stone. It's chonky as all get out and does decent ST and AOE.

 

Claws is king of AOE (rad melee might be a runner for this) and it's third in ST performance (Fire and DB in that order), and you get the attack chain you need by *18*. And Claws is very end friendly. At...shockwave is at 32?...you get another form of soft CC that can actually be used in your attack chain depending on how you build. You don't take Eviscerate as claws unless you like the animation. Claws does NOT have good frontloaded damage though. How chonky Stone feels? Claws is the opposite of that.

Edited April 6, 2023 by SomeGuy

[BuiltDifferent5]

4 minutes ago, SomeGuy said:

Dual Blades, with enough recharge to run the optimal chain, WILL have end issues. Sweeping Strike cost a lot of end and if you're throwing a snipe in there...woo boy. But dead god. I have a DB/ENA and it just chews through stuff.

 

EM/RAD. Zero ZERO end issues (and good AOE with the targeted heal procced out, ground zero, and whirling hands). You can have an HP problem though if you use Energy Trasfer a lot. Luckily, Rad armor has a click heal.

 

DM is really really easy on End. Shield is not. So, seems like a good pairing. I personally like DM a lot, but definitely not for it's performance. It's at the end for ST performance and you have to be pretty crafty to get good AOE out of it. Shield is a good AOE boost out of the box without the need to be crafty in your build.

 

Don't dismiss Stone. It's chonky as all get out and does decent ST and AOE.

 

Claws is king of AOE and it's third in ST performance (Fire and DB in that order), and you get the attack chain you need by *18*. And Claws is very end friendly. At...shockwave is at 32?...you get another form of soft CC that can actually be used in your attack chain depending on how you build. You don't take Eviscerate as claws unless you like the animation. Claws does NOT have good frontloaded damage though. How chonky Stone feels? Claws is the opposite of that.

I've been leveling a DB/EnA Scrapper myself SomeGuy, and it is a hoot. I dig the animations and I like having the option to use the combos if I want, but to also just pump recharge for the "GOD" damage haha.

QQ for you on DM/Shield: It was my first scrapper to 50 ever. I've been toying with it a bit since I feel it is a great all around, jack of all trades combo. What are your thoughts on ToF now that is AOE? Seems great on a Tanker, but I'm wondering if I should respec into it on my Scrap.

[provoked]

So I know everybody poops on WP but I am thinking that combining Axe (crunchy end heavy primary) with WP (lots of recovery and hands off survivability) might be the way for me. 

 

Can anyone speak to the actual survivability of it?

[SomeGuy]

8 hours ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

What are your thoughts on ToF now that is AOE? Seems great on a Tanker, but I'm wondering if I should respec into it on my Scrap.

 

 

It's essential now. I have mine procced out with DNA Siphon on my DM/BIO. ToF (procced), DNA Siphon (procced), Soul Drain, Dark Consumption (slotted for damage), and Ball Lightning make AOE a pretty good thing for the character actually.

[BuiltDifferent5]

3 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

 

 

It's essential now. I have mine procced out with DNA Siphon on my DM/BIO. ToF (procced), DNA Siphon (procced), Soul Drain, Dark Consumption (slotted for damage), and Ball Lightning make AOE a pretty good thing for the character actually.

Makes sense. I’ll have to figure out how to rework my build/what I’m gonna drop to add it. You just 6 slot with proc?

[Ashford]

When it really comes down to it, Shield defense and bio are close to one another but they both have drawbacks

 

SD, as people stated lacks in endurance and is best paired with powers that help sustain endurance like energy/dark/elec, other than that, it makes for one tanky scrapper

 

Bio can have defenses that can outperform SD but it's highly dependant on how many enemies are in the screen, making it a better pairing for AoE powers such as spines/RM/TW

 

However, both require some investment before a player can see a substantial return.

 

A more out of the box experience when it comes to a secondary would very much be Rad, it only has 3 clickies, and has a solid defense. Not to mention it great for a primary that can take great advantage of -defense.

 

Of course all of this is only if OP really wants to min/max the synergies between primary and secondary for a more streamlined experience.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Ashford

[Ashford]

On 4/5/2023 at 4:04 AM, nihilii said:

For what it's worth, EnA is mostly passive. It has two main clicks: the heal that gives you endurance reduction, and the endurance drain. You could get away putting the heal on auto (essentially treating it as regen + conserve power), and using the end drain only whenever your blue bar is hurting.

 

Throwing ideas out there:

 

- Energy Melee is a good endurance friendly primary, thanks to Energy Transfer costing 0 endurance. Even if sappers drain you without respite, you can keep spamming ET.

- Bio Armor overflows with endurance management. Recovery passive at level 1, potential enhancement of that passive at level 10. Then there's DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura if you want even more end. OK, these are clicks again. But DNA Siphon can be used as an attack, and you could conceivably ignore Parasitic Aura and even Ablative Carapace, and end up at roughly the same performance as Willpower. Not that I would suggest outright *skipping* these powers, but you could approach it from a perspective of - it's there if I really really need to use them, but I don't have to obsess about it.

Coming back to BuiltDifferent's suggestion, DB/EnA really seems like a strong pick for your goals. DB can run the Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals attack chain on low recharge while leveling. This full chain is available by level 22, and it's fairly endurance efficient because the Attack Vitals combo is essentially bonus damage you get for free.

 

/EnA is also cool because it's fairly comprehensive in covering defense, some resistance, some healing... You end up with a well-rounded character that doesn't require active management to keep standing.

 

Most definitely would skip ablative Carapace once Parasitic has enough recharge to click it way more often. After that, don't need the extra emergency button, when para can debuff, give way more defense(as it's per enemy) and with recharge, be used way more often.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Ashford

[nihilii]

16 hours ago, provoked said:

So I know everybody poops on WP but I am thinking that combining Axe (crunchy end heavy primary) with WP (lots of recovery and hands off survivability) might be the way for me. 

 

Can anyone speak to the actual survivability of it?

The tough part in playing WP is you're basically Bio minus the clicks.

Quick Recovery + Fast Healing = a weaker Inexhaustible (that's 2 power picks to be marginally worse than a single power available at lvl1 - ouch!)
Mind Over Body = Hardened Carapace
Environmental Modification = Heightened Senses

What remains for WP? A wee bit of resistance and +maxHP with HPT. Some decent regen in RttC. Better psi resistance/defense. A T9 bumping your resistances slightly.

Compare that with the extra clicks for Bio, the two auras as passive, and the offensive/defensive/efficient adaptations...

WP can survive OK, in situations that don't involve defense debuffs. And with tools like Shadow Meld or Barrier you eventually plug that hole. Still, relatively speaking WP pays a tremendous price for performance that is barely better than clickless Bio.

In my opinion WP only makes sense if you don't want Bio's ugly effects tarring your costume.

[SomeGuy]

 

2 hours ago, Ashford said:

 

Most definitely would skip ablative Carapace once Parasitic has enough recharge to click it way more often. After that, don't need the extra emergency button, when para can debuff, give way more defense(as it's per enemy) and with recharge, be used way more often.

 

Holy crap. DON'T do this. Do NOT skip Abalative Carapace.

 

5 hours ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

Makes sense. I’ll have to figure out how to rework my build/what I’m gonna drop to add it. You just 6 slot with proc?

 

 

Pretty much. And ToF has a fast recharge.

[Nemu]

On 4/5/2023 at 9:48 PM, provoked said:

To straight up ask the question - why does everyone steer away from willpower? My main goal is staying alive in TFs and soloing missions (preferable+4x8 if possible). Would willpower do it or does it just completely drop off at 50?

Forums steer towards peak performance and can get into 30 page "discussions" about it. Willpower is fine for the "casual" crowd and based on what you've posted it'll be a a good fit because it just works without you having to time clicks and such.

 

Also, SO WHAT if you can't solo +4/8? A lot of people ask for builds with "aspirations" to do that. Most build request thread asks for something along the lines of "god builds that can solo +4/8/hamidon," but my guess is that the reality is that it's a "nice to have" rather than a necessity. In addition, +4/8 council is much different than +4/8 arachnos or vanguard. Incarnates also trivialize some of those encounters, you are never going to get capped resists AND defenses to everything with IO set bonuses, but destinies can make even the poorest builds god mode for a few seconds.

 

The mark of a good player is knowing what you can and can not handle and adjusting as the situation calls for it. For example I had an ice tank express reluctance to tank +4/8 Resistance stating his defenses gets shredded by them. I told him instead of standing in one spot in the open and trying to fight them, round them up around a corner. That simple adjustment made all the difference in the world to his survival because now he (and the rest of the team) can use AoEs more efficiently and dispatch mobs quicker, instead of taking potshots which debuff his defense from mobs he can't reach.

 

If willpower suits your playstyle go for it and make the best of it. I had a DM/WP build on live and there's nothing wrong with it.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Nemu