Two birds; one stone

[Yomo Kimyata]

I've played a lot of different powers in HC, but I tend to draw the line at playing things I don't enjoy the look or feel of.  Flipping animations, for example, or fire/ice swords.  I also have a bit of an issue with secondaries that make you translucent/invisible, because I generally try to make a costume that I like the look and feel of.  So as a result, I've done things like make Ice Melee characters without swords (very doable for a scrapper).

 

The other day, I was playing a spines/electric brute and decided to pick up Ripper to see if I hated it as much as I remembered.  I did, but I also realized that when I was fighting big mobs, I really couldn't see my character anyway, so why get uptight about the animation.  And that got me thinking.

 

Don't like fire swords?  Great, use a secondary where you won't have to look at them.  So I've decided to work on a Fire/Energy scrapper, killing two birds with one stone as I will maneuver an indistinct blob through the game.

 

The problem, or course, is that I know very little about the Fire primary.  Enlighten me!

[Spaghetti Betty]

Though I prefer Tanker Fire Melee, the scrapper version is no joke when it comes to dishing out huge damage after the update, and even manages to be extremely proc friendly.

 

To the woe of many a farmer, Fire Sword, Fire Sword Circle, and Greater Fire Sword can all accept Defense Debuff enhancements. This means you can turn any one of these attacks into a handy debuffer. Special mention goes to GFS as it has pretty good proc math. You can totally dump damage procs in it for massive return.

 

Incinerate is great as an opener. It doesn't deal upfront damage, but instead burns foes severely for great damage over time. A good ST option for your Critical Strikes proc.

 

For the progression player, Breath of Fire is a great filler in your rotation as a cleaving ST attack. You can always spec it out later.

 

All in all, a Fire Melee scrapper will burn big targets down pretty handily, but may feel lacking in the AoE department. Maybe there are ways to make up for that?