Shield or Bio for 1H weapon pair

[Fihn]

I've never really played a scrapper before but I've been working on a few brute farmers and I'm tempted to give one of the weapons a shot so I thought I'd do it on a scrapper. I hear a lot of good things about Bio Armour and I'm enjoying what I've had a chance to play, but it just feels thematically or stylistically 'borked' when I design a hero with a medium or large weapon in one hand and none in the other. It's a personal opinion only.

 

SO, long story short, as someone who hasn't yet played Bio all the way up and has never played shield, what kind of differences am I looking at by going Shield instead of Bio when paired with Axe BS or Mace?

[SomeGuy]

Bio is actually better AOE (noticeably actually) but SD isn't anywhere near as squishy. Also, SD looks awesome with a weapon. This matters.

 

I've got a WM/SD, BS/SD, WM/BIO, and BS/BIO. Thematically the SD ones work better for *me*. And they definitely aren't as squishy. And they both do really good damage ST and AOE. The Bio versions definitely dog walk the SD versions in terms of damage, but they are a LOT squishier and I haven't figured out a way to make them look as cool to me. Granted, I'm bias to the sword'n'board look.

[Nightmarer]

Basically, on Shield you are protected to all positional defenses, can get decent S/L resistance and a decent dmg boost plus an in-built AoE attack that unfortunately does not crit and since it is treated by the game as a "pseudo-pet", procs are not worth using in it.

 

With Bio, you want to softcap to exotic dmg (nrg / neg / fire / cold) and max on s/l dmg res. you got a better dmg boost than shield (in offensive adaptation) and a decent res to toxic dmg and the possibility of changing to an end efficient mode or even to a tank(ish) mode. Plus you get a self heal that with enough procs and be also a good AoE attack.

 

Both are excellent sets, I nowadays prefer Bio because for some reason, can't stand anymore the interruptions caused by the mez powers in shield, sr and nin.

[Ensaga]

Thank you guys, this is exactly the kind of experienced info I was looking for - much appreciated!

 

21 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

I've got a WM/SD, BS/SD, WM/BIO, and BS/BIO.

 

How does BS stack up to WM? Any interest in BA or was there something off-putting about it?

[SomeGuy]

I do have a BA/RAD also (Axedents Happen). I made those characters BEFORE the recent pass to BA. BA was in a pretty bad spot before.

 

These are my pylon times comparing the two:

 

Basically, they are so close that RNG can sway them one way or another for me. With that said, it comes down to which looks cooler to me and is more fun. They both play similarly to me, and both feel darn chonky with their hits. They both do similar AOE. Both are problematic on end if you want to keep a continuous chain. In terms of performance, they are very similar. Also, I keep forgetting BS DOES have a +DEF attack for smash/melee if that matters for you.

 

Not gonna lie, BA in it's current state sounds like a really cool pairing with SD. I did do BA/SD on a brute before cause of the look, but that was back ob live and I couldn't get past the abysmal performance.

[StriderIV]

On 1/15/2024 at 11:26 PM, SomeGuy said:

Bio is actually better AOE (noticeably actually) but SD isn't anywhere near as squishy. Also, SD looks awesome with a weapon. This matters.

 

I've got a WM/SD, BS/SD, WM/BIO, and BS/BIO. Thematically the SD ones work better for *me*. And they definitely aren't as squishy. And they both do really good damage ST and AOE. The Bio versions definitely dog walk the SD versions in terms of damage, but they are a LOT squishier and I haven't figured out a way to make them look as cool to me. Granted, I'm bias to the sword'n'board look.

Sword’n’board for the win. SomeGuy has a build floating around here somewhere that hits like a truck.

 

Looks all kinds of awesome, although I do hope BS gets the Battle Axe treatment with some updates.