Gameplay Tips For Starting A Scrapper?

[Redzone008]

I'm looking to roll a Katana/Invul Scrapper.  I've dabbled with one but  now I am ready to roll my official "second" main.  However, I'm coming from the Blaster/Sentinel world, so I have limited experience with melee and up close combat.  I was curious what are your tips for running a Katana for a former-ranged player?

 

Any useful macros you use? Any playstyle tricks you have?  As a former blaster and ranged-focus sentinel, I'm use to pulling, or using space to bombard with attacks, or running in to drop a blizzard AOE and running out.  What are the equivalent Scrapper techniques?

 

Looking forward to rolling a new AT, so any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Thrax]

Turn your toggles on, jump in, and go nuts. 

[Without_Pause]

On 7/4/2023 at 7:51 AM, Thrax said:

Turn your toggles on, jump in, and go nuts. 

+1. Dull Pain isn't a straight heal so don't wait too long on it. A Kat/invul is be rather hard to kill once you get going. FYI, I joked with a tank on my last Synapse TF where my DB/sr Scrapper was running around and pulling and herding. A conversion started between us, and I joked they should try being faster than I am. They responded that wasn't easy to do. 😆

[SeraphimKensai]

I have a Invulnerability/Katana tanker that came out to work fairly well. I like the arc increase on flashing steel that tanks get due to gauntlet.

 

In a scrapper you have a 75% res cap as opposed to the tank's 90%, but you get some sweet criticals. Survivability wise Invuln is more of a hybrid in my eyes between resistance, defense, and it's HP pool.

 

Due to how Invincibility works if you build for defense build towards typed defense. Then again you could get melee up to a decent level and use divine avalanche to get you up higher. As a scrapper you won't have the best DDR though so keep that in mind.

 

You'll want a decent amount of global recharge which helps dull pain and helps you get as much usage out of soaring dragon and golden dragonfly which you could stick a couple damage procs in there as well to up the burst.

[UltraAlt]

On 7/3/2023 at 5:50 PM, Redzone008 said:

I'm looking to roll a Katana/Invul Scrapper.  I've dabbled with one but  now I am ready to roll my official "second" main.  However, I'm coming from the Blaster/Sentinel world, so I have limited experience with melee and up close combat.  I was curious what are your tips for running a Katana for a former-ranged player?

 

Any useful macros you use? Any playstyle tricks you have?  As a former blaster and ranged-focus sentinel, I'm use to pulling, or using space to bombard with attacks, or running in to drop a blizzard AOE and running out.  What are the equivalent Scrapper techniques?

 

Looking forward to rolling a new AT, so any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

 

What is your secondary?

Are you usually running with a team or soloing?

[Redzone008]

11 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

What is your secondary?

 

Invul

11 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Are you usually running with a team or soloing?

I solo 90% of the time.  I will run TFs, time permitting, but I plan on soloing the Gold Side and then switch over and run Mishs mostly with the occasional TF.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Redzone008 said:

I solo 90% of the time.  I will run TFs, time permitting, but I plan on soloing the Gold Side and then switch over and run Mishs mostly with the occasional TF.

 

This part is pretty general across the board for me:

Any power that doesn't have an ACC of 2 gets 2 acc enhances. If you don't hit, you wasted the end.

Any power that costs more than 10 end to active gets an end enhancement (after the 2 ACC if an attack)

Any toggle power that cost more than .26 end get an end enhancement before any other enhancement.

 

Melee characters:

Get the anti-mez power as soon as you can.

You picked Invulnerability which has a toggle anti-mez. If it cost more than .26 end, I would put an end enhancement in it to start with. Add a resist to this one as soon as you can after  you have added a defense/resist enhancement to 

On melee sets with a click anti-mez power, I  would put it on autofire and slot it with 2 recharge enhances. This enough so that it will always be recharged before it wears off. However, if you are not careful, you will bypass it automatically activating if you don't give it time to active during combat. And, if you see it is recharged and not going off, click on it. 

 

If a toggle power is defensive, load a Defense or Resist enhancement as soon as possible after adding the END mod if needed it get it below .26 end.

 

I generally do not add additional slots to brawl. If I ever do, I only add one slot so that I can have the 2 accs in there, but, most of the time, I'm removing brawl from my tray entirely pretty quickly.

 

With Katana, I would put a -def enhancement in the quickest attack power and the cone and PBAoE attack.

 

General power picks:

You are kind of going to need to do with with what works for you.

I would tend to go a little defense heavy if soloing and get a defense power as soon as available after I have at least 4 melee attacks including brawl.

 

Depending on character conception, I go with a couple of different tactics for scrapping:

1) use the origin-based range attack for a pull and run back around a corner.

2) do the same thing with nemesis staff or black wand.

3) do the same thing with a temp power

4) get recall target. see a group. target a foe. get behind cover. teleport them to your location.

5) run in and tag the guy farthest from the rest of the group and fall back. Turn and attack them and hopefully not all of the mob will have followed.

 

Targeting - picking your first target.

If pulling or teleporting, go for minions first.

If going for the farthest guy from the group, the farthest guy from the group is the target.

If you think you can take them, go for the LTs first. (LTs usually have a way to buff or heal)

If there is a boss, take out their LTs first. if not, target the boss first as they are the biggest threat.

 

Falling back

falling back isn't the same necessarily as running away.

What  you want to do is to dodge back around cover as soon as possible, hit the first guy that comes around the corner with an attack or two, but fall back again before the whole group can converge on you. repeat. Once you have whittled them down a bit then check your health.

A lot of the time, you can string them out by doing this. 

If you run too far back, and they turn around and start going the other way, then wait for a sec and then run back to take off the stragglers and the end of the line as they are returning to their spawn point.

If you below 25%, I would tend to say use a heal power, respite, or run back to lose any enemy mob entirely even if it means running out the door.

 

Inspirations.

I use inspirations but not constantly.

If I don't have an anti-mez power, my first column is always filled with breakfrees. My last column is alway filled with awakens (hopefully, you won't need any, but unless you are with team mates that may need them, you shouldn't need more than 2). The rest of my insp tray is always filled with respites. If defense or resist insp fall into my tray, great; but before going into battle I will be prepared with the heals.

I use this macro

/macro Heal "inspexec_name respite$$inspexec_name dramatic_improvement$$inspexec_name resurgence"

to set off the respites. having it the tray for me as a power makes me able to trigger it more quickly than with the F keys as I play with a Logitech Game Controller.

 

that's pretty much it.

Don't bite of more than you can chew.

And run away if you realize that you took too big of a bite.

 

Oh, forgot to add stuff about teaming.

On teams as a scrapper, I have two main playstyles.

1) Front line - go for the boss and biggest threats.

2) Back line - stop any enemies from attacking the squishes and blasters in the backfield - especially stopping them from getting within melee range of the squishies. If the squishes start falling, I would start protecting them.

 

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by UltraAlt
adding teaming stuff

[Doomguide2005]

Katana has Divine Avalanche as a power.  It is a defensive power but I'd prioritize damage enhancement vs defense.  Experience against a mob will give you knowledge of when to use and when not to but my personal default is initially when engaging a mob not to use.  It is very sweet to use for the defensive boost (vs Melee , Lethal) but will cut into your damage output.  Reserve for use when that boss starts cracking your skull a bit much.  It self stacks and is not hard to boost defense by 30% with it.

[Yomo Kimyata]

My "main", both on live and here, is BS/Inv.  

 

It works pretty much as you would expect.  Fair, but not great, damage.  Good overall protection, but a bit lacking at the high end without judicious use of sets and set bonuses.

 

Divine Avalanche gets you lots of melee defense (and it stacks!) so either put it in your rotation or build up your melee defense elsewhere.  Katana gives you -def, and invincibility gives you +to hit, so once you start hitting someone you don't need to spend a lot of effort on additional +to hit or +accuracy bonuses.  Other than that, everything pretty much works as advertised.

[Redzone008]

thank you so much, everyone!