Due Regard Posted April 16 Posted April 16 On 4/16/2025 at 2:50 PM, FFTMime said: As a brief end note, knowing what powers to focus on for early leveling may help people too. The art of leveling is something not often brushed on in advice. I wonder how often trying to dilute your slots across too many powers is common. You don't get many early. Build one or two super strong bread and butter attacks even if you respec out of them later. May help feel a lot. Expand This, not enough this... Most of the content/lore/material is sub-50. And that level 50 will play very differently at lower levels as you're climbing or going to content you've missed. I recognize people farm, and if that's fun for them to powerlevel yet another 50 that they park, then good on them. I'm the weirdo who enjoys the journey and the change as the toon grows and gets better. 1 Death is the best debuff.
FFTMime Posted April 16 Posted April 16 (edited) Yes, COH was uniquely built that most of the content is leveling content. That was the intent. Originally there was nothing to do at 50 at all. That said, my advice is already stated. Examine your attacks you get at like 10 and under and figure out what among those you will slot as much as you can early. Two strong attacks with a third as a filler to finish off hanging healthbars seems to work on most ATs and power sets. If you are an AT with no defense or support secondary, you can be more liberal, but diluting your attention is bad. Similarly, getting better attacks once you hit mid-levels is a trojan horse. You can easily turn a winning character mid-level to a bit of a drag to play by chaining like 5 things that all don't do much. You'll be happier flatlining guys with fewer punchier and quicker attacks. Not that you shouldn't take those attacks. Try everything. Yet keep in mind slotting them can be bad till you have slots to burn. Once you get used to things, you can eyeball when a power would mature better with slots versus probably being a waste. Uh.. for instance... a power that technically does damage but you stand around too long doing it. May want to keep slotting your lower attacks and just put recharge in them. Not all upgrades are upgrades. Some things just link poorly too no matter what damage they do. It's fine to experiment with the particulars, but your actual mission clear should be well slotted low level attacks. Edit: Particularly mind that, once you pass certain level thresholds, enemies get functionally more accuracy and nasty stuff. So something like a scrapper will suddenly need to slot their defenses rather than coasting. Which puts pressure all the more on slotting a few attacks early before you're forced to put some attention on defenses. Edited April 16 by FFTMime 1
Story Archer Posted April 17 Posted April 17 I've played about a dozen Scrappers to 50 over the years and my favorite one for most of that time was my Dual Blades/Ninjitsu. I can't say enough about that build and all the things I like about it. However, my aversion to Bio-Armor stemmed from my personal distaste for its visuals and my failure to fully appreciate how Absorb shields worked. Having discovered that there was a 'minimal FX' option for Bio Armor, I finally gave it a shot (Claws/Bio-Armor), and I have to say she's become my favorite Scrapper and one of my top two favorite builds of all time. She is just so, so very lethal. I've got her maxed out now and I just can't stop playing her, so much so that I've made her my 'new' badger just to have a reason to always have her out. Her survivability is great, she's not as 'clicky' on defense as I feared (I don't care for high-maintenance defenses), but I think the thing I like most about her is her efficiency and versatility in combat. Having a fast-recharging ranged attack (with KD to boot) as part of your regular attack chain is such a big deal for melee types. My standard attack chain is incredibly tight, regardless of whether I'm fighting single targets or groups. vs. hard targets: Follow Up -> Eviscerate -> Focus vs. groups: Follow Up -> Eviscerate -> Spin I open with Shockwave on my way in, maybe popping Shadow Meld if I think it's necessary and then it's just lather, rinse repeat, with Genetic Contamination cooking all the while. I had thought to include Cross Punch in my attack chain (it's an incredibly under-appreciated power imo), but there's neither any room nor any need for it. Crits just rain down. Strike and Moonbeam aren't even in my power tray, unless I'm exemping down. See build below, if anyone's curious or wants to comment. [Ladyshrike] alt.mbdFetching info... Top 10 11 Favorite Characters (Excelsior): Ladyshrike - Claws/Bio-Armor Scrapper Veil of Blades - Dual Blades/Ninjitsu Scrapper Silver Majestrix - Radiation/Super Strength Tanker Starsprite - Fire/Atomic Blaster Mistress of Chains - Dark/Dark Controller Six-Gun Angel - Dual Pistols/Kinetics Corruptor Rad Hammer - Radiation/Stone Melee Tanker Lady Wormwood - Fire/Plant Dominator K-D1VA - Kinetic/Sonic Defender Killer Hurtz - Electric/Super Reflexes Sentinel Daisy Chained - Demon/Dark Mastermind
Mattmba Posted April 18 Posted April 18 On 3/6/2024 at 3:14 AM, Frosticus said: Stone/nin is doing something wonderful for me. Seismic has 91% chance to crit from shinobi hide. That ups it to mag 6 hold and it has a high chance of triggering crit strikes. Tons of aoe control and ffb procs galore. Aoe damage is a tad low, but at least tremor is 15ft and all the ffb spam brings procd fireball around quickly. Stone burns crazy end , nin fills it up. Nin has (very) low ddr, Stone has oodles of control. Eventually it will be a t9 build, but it is playing very well even in its "immature" state. Expand Thanks for teaching me something new. I’ve had several builds with super reflexes with both a 50 tanker and 50 scrapper but I never even looked and Nin. It has a heal and end+ while having great defenses against all. Stone seems like a strong choice to go with it but what about ice, energy, electric or street justice or even spines?
aethereal Posted April 19 Posted April 19 On 4/18/2025 at 6:41 PM, Mattmba said: Thanks for teaching me something new. I’ve had several builds with super reflexes with both a 50 tanker and 50 scrapper but I never even looked and Nin. It has a heal and end+ while having great defenses against all. Stone seems like a strong choice to go with it but what about ice, energy, electric or street justice or even spines? Expand Ninjutsu is an overall strong armor that will go well with lots of things. Its two big problems are: 1. It's a very defense-based armor set with low DDR 2. Its offense boost is on the weak side, just an increased chance to crit once per combat. Ice is this very feast or famine set: it has one of the strongest ST attacks in the game (Frozen Touch), it has good-to-great AoE in Frost and Frozen Aura, and it has good additional mitigation in Ice Patch, but Frozen Fists is dire, Ice Sword is weak, and Greater Ice Sword is mediocre, so you don't have much single target beyond just Frozen Touch. Energy is one of the stronger ST sets in the game, but has weak AoE. Electric is not a great set. Lightning Rod is good and fun, but other than that it has extremely mediocre ST and its AoE is like.... fine but not great. Street Justice has strong ST, mediocre AoE, and is overall a pretty good set. I don't think any of them have incredible synergy with Ninjutsu, but again Ninjutsu is a solid armor set that goes well with most stuff.
Frozen Burn Posted April 19 Posted April 19 I'm surprised I haven't commented on this thread yet. lol Despite the suckiness of Kin Melee... I do enjoy playing my KM/SR Scrapper (more so solo). I also enjoy her MA/SR sister and the classic Claws/Regen. But my absolute favs so far are Katana/Dark and War Mace/Invuln. Both are beasts and survive practically anything. SO much fun play. 1
Mattmba Posted April 20 Posted April 20 (edited) On 4/19/2025 at 2:24 PM, Frozen Burn said: I'm surprised I haven't commented on this thread yet. lol Despite the suckiness of Kin Melee... I do enjoy playing my KM/SR Scrapper (more so solo). I also enjoy her MA/SR sister and the classic Claws/Regen. But my absolute favs so far are Katana/Dark and War Mace/Invuln. Both are beasts and survive practically anything. SO much fun play. Expand Thanks for the feedback on the ninjitsu defensive power set. I don't think I will make an immediate alt that has it but it looks like it would be fun to try. I liked my SR defense tanker that I got to 50 and found SR to be a nice armor set for a tank. I just got bored with it and the lower damage and no heal. I would just watch my health wittle down with no heal and no real damage mitigation beyond hoping the 5% minimum chances to hit didn’t hit me too many times in a row. My very first character on live was a MA/SR scrapper back when endurance recovery was way worse than it is today. Had to rest for up to a minute after every battle. It makes me think that MA/ninjutsi might be a fun combination. I’m leveling up an Ice Melee/ Fire Aura scrapper that has been pretty good. Got a little boring around level 38 but as I get some IOs into the build to boost defense I am finding it fun to plan again. Edited April 20 by Mattmba
Story Archer Posted April 25 Posted April 25 On 4/18/2025 at 6:41 PM, Mattmba said: Thanks for teaching me something new. I’ve had several builds with super reflexes with both a 50 tanker and 50 scrapper but I never even looked and Nin. It has a heal and end+ while having great defenses against all. Stone seems like a strong choice to go with it but what about ice, energy, electric or street justice or even spines? Expand Just tossing this out there - Ninjitsu also has a nice little +Stealth component which, when combined with something like a +Stealth Celerity IO in Sprint makes you almost undetectable. Very useful for stealthing missions which can be a valuable asset, especially if you solo a lot. 1 Top 10 11 Favorite Characters (Excelsior): Ladyshrike - Claws/Bio-Armor Scrapper Veil of Blades - Dual Blades/Ninjitsu Scrapper Silver Majestrix - Radiation/Super Strength Tanker Starsprite - Fire/Atomic Blaster Mistress of Chains - Dark/Dark Controller Six-Gun Angel - Dual Pistols/Kinetics Corruptor Rad Hammer - Radiation/Stone Melee Tanker Lady Wormwood - Fire/Plant Dominator K-D1VA - Kinetic/Sonic Defender Killer Hurtz - Electric/Super Reflexes Sentinel Daisy Chained - Demon/Dark Mastermind
Epistasis Posted Wednesday at 06:29 AM Posted Wednesday at 06:29 AM (edited) On 4/19/2025 at 2:24 PM, Frozen Burn said: I'm surprised I haven't commented on this thread yet. lol Despite the suckiness of Kin Melee... I do enjoy playing my KM/SR Scrapper (more so solo). I also enjoy her MA/SR sister and the classic Claws/Regen. But my absolute favs so far are Katana/Dark and War Mace/Invuln. Both are beasts and survive practically anything. SO much fun play. Expand So my 'main' on returning from live for the first year after I came back was a KM/SR (Poetry InMotion), and I spent months asking for advice on her. I love the toolkit of Kinetic melee, the solid PBAoE, the medium ranged attack in the set - (built-in rangefinder without having to go outside the primary!), the Siphon power, the taunt for the occasional moments (I took everything except Repulsing Torrent 🙂 ), the animations... everything except for the glacial slowness, of course. I tweaked and tweaked on her and had no idea just *how* slow my 'little engine that could' was until I rolled a Martial Arts/SR just to see how it played. I still love my KM, but the kicker is greased lightning by comparison... Nice to see another KM scrapper in the wild! Regards, Poetry InMotion (KM/SR, Torchbearer) Careless Whisper (MA/SR, Torchbearer *and* Everlasting) Edited Wednesday at 06:39 AM by Epistasis 1
Frozen Burn Posted Wednesday at 02:55 PM Posted Wednesday at 02:55 PM On 5/7/2025 at 6:29 AM, Epistasis said: So my 'main' on returning from live for the first year after I came back was a KM/SR (Poetry InMotion), and I spent months asking for advice on her. I love the toolkit of Kinetic melee, the solid PBAoE, the medium ranged attack in the set - (built-in rangefinder without having to go outside the primary!), the Siphon power, the taunt for the occasional moments (I took everything except Repulsing Torrent 🙂 ), the animations... everything except for the glacial slowness, of course. I tweaked and tweaked on her and had no idea just *how* slow my 'little engine that could' was until I rolled a Martial Arts/SR just to see how it played. I still love my KM, but the kicker is greased lightning by comparison... Nice to see another KM scrapper in the wild! Regards, Poetry InMotion (KM/SR, Torchbearer) Careless Whisper (MA/SR, Torchbearer *and* Everlasting) Expand Repulsion Torrent is almost a must as it is one of the faster activating and hitting powers in the set. I keep the KB in it as sometimes SR needs a moment to "breathe" to let incoming damage slow down and/or DefDebuffs to fade. The PBAOE I found to be horrible and rarely hits more than 2 foes as the radius seems too small. I don't get "misses" over heads, it's truly like they are at 8 ft when the power only goes 7 ft radius. I wonder if it's partly because of SR not having a taunt or aggro aura to draw them in tighter. Anyway, I get the same with Siphon Power - rarely do I get its full potential of buffs - it only gives 2-3 stacks for me. So, I hate that power too. lol But yet... The set is still pretty, and still fun to play solo. 🙂 ("Solo" being the key word there because yeah, all other ATs will kill your target before you finish your windup. lol 😄 )
Heatstroke Posted Wednesday at 03:55 PM Posted Wednesday at 03:55 PM (edited) Disclaimer I hate scrappers. There is very little about them as an AT that I like. I understand them.. I just have no love for them. I find Brutes and Stalkers more enjoyable. I like my Arachons Widow and Bane Spider better as melee based " scrappers " better. Now THAT being said.. I have a Titan Weapns/Energy Aura that I absolutely LOVE.. The look. The feel of the attacks.. Love it.. The Weapon looks like a bike energy sword.. so because I love that character to much.. I'm planning to make a companion character im thinking Axe/Shield Scrapper.. The Sword and the Shield... So that ONE character is making me think about making another scrapper.. And I HATE scrappers.. Edited Wednesday at 04:04 PM by Heatstroke 1
aethereal Posted Wednesday at 05:11 PM Posted Wednesday at 05:11 PM On 5/7/2025 at 2:55 PM, Frozen Burn said: The PBAOE I found to be horrible and rarely hits more than 2 foes as the radius seems too small. I don't get "misses" over heads, it's truly like they are at 8 ft when the power only goes 7 ft radius. Expand Burst has an 8' radius. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=scrapper_melee.kinetic_attack.burst&at=scrapper
Frozen Burn Posted Wednesday at 06:45 PM Posted Wednesday at 06:45 PM On 5/7/2025 at 5:11 PM, aethereal said: Burst has an 8' radius. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=scrapper_melee.kinetic_attack.burst&at=scrapper Expand Sure, ok. 🙂 Point was, it still seems like the foes are JUST out of range of it.
Frozen Burn Posted Wednesday at 06:59 PM Posted Wednesday at 06:59 PM On 5/7/2025 at 3:55 PM, Heatstroke said: I hate scrappers. There is very little about them as an AT that I like. I understand them.. I just have no love for them. I find Brutes and Stalkers more enjoyable. I like my Arachons Widow and Bane Spider better as melee based " scrappers " better. Expand That's awesome and I find it fascinating. I love hearing other people's opinions on these things so thanks for sharing. For me, I hate Stalkers - not enough AOEs. And the placate gimmick is "meh," but I do have a Stalker and quite enjoy playing it. Brutes are "meh" overall because I hate the Fury mechanic. I have several and love each of them, and they are of course useful for higher HPs Res values compared to Scrappers. But I do like and still prefer Scrappers as they are just in your face with lots of crits - simple and easy - lots of AOEs and don't have to worry about keep a Fury bar full for damage output. I also love my Widow - very fun. I suspect I'll like a Bane too - it's next on my list. But I'm still having too much fun with my WM/Invuln Scrapper. 😄 1
aethereal Posted Wednesday at 07:23 PM Posted Wednesday at 07:23 PM On 5/7/2025 at 6:45 PM, Frozen Burn said: Sure, ok. 🙂 Point was, it still seems like the foes are JUST out of range of it. Expand This seems unlikely to be any more of a problem than it is with the many other Scrapper PBAoEs that also have an 8' radius. (Broad Sword, Claws, Dual Blades, Energy Melee, Katana, and War Mace also have 8' PBAoEs).
Frozen Burn Posted Wednesday at 08:26 PM Posted Wednesday at 08:26 PM On 5/7/2025 at 7:23 PM, aethereal said: This seems unlikely to be any more of a problem than it is with the many other Scrapper PBAoEs that also have an 8' radius. (Broad Sword, Claws, Dual Blades, Energy Melee, Katana, and War Mace also have 8' PBAoEs). Expand You would think, but not in my experience. I have no issue hitting 5+mobs with Katana, MA, WM, Spines, etc... but with KM's Burst... never get more than 2. I think once or twice I've gotten 3. I get a lot of 1 or none as well. It's a stark difference whenever I play my KM.
aethereal Posted Thursday at 01:57 AM Posted Thursday at 01:57 AM On 5/7/2025 at 8:26 PM, Frozen Burn said: You would think, but not in my experience. I have no issue hitting 5+mobs with Katana, MA, WM, Spines, etc... but with KM's Burst... never get more than 2. I think once or twice I've gotten 3. I get a lot of 1 or none as well. It's a stark difference whenever I play my KM. Expand A lot of discussion on these fora is people saying, "I claim that there is a mysterious difference between powers that shows up nowhere in the descriptions of those powers." And, like... okay. Maybe there's some kind of weird bug going on. But I really implore people to consider: you may just be mistaken. Whenever I drill down into these things, I feel like about 80% of the time this kind of mysterious behavior that would have to be a very specific bug just... doesn't reproduce for me. If you haven't done rigorous testing where you're actually keeping everything else constant and also do it enough times to lower then chance of coincidence, it's much more likely that this apparent difference between Burst and the six other nearly-identically-coded Scrapper powers is something to do with your armor set, something to do with the particular mobs, something to do with your slotting, something to do with your team, or just plain bad luck, than that radius code is broken, but only for Burst.
Thraxen Posted Thursday at 04:56 AM Posted Thursday at 04:56 AM Just finished a spines/stone. Spine attack adding two dots is a lot of numbers popping up.
Frozen Burn Posted Thursday at 05:44 AM Posted Thursday at 05:44 AM On 5/8/2025 at 1:57 AM, aethereal said: A lot of discussion on these fora is people saying, "I claim that there is a mysterious difference between powers that shows up nowhere in the descriptions of those powers." And, like... okay. Maybe there's some kind of weird bug going on. But I really implore people to consider: you may just be mistaken. Whenever I drill down into these things, I feel like about 80% of the time this kind of mysterious behavior that would have to be a very specific bug just... doesn't reproduce for me. If you haven't done rigorous testing where you're actually keeping everything else constant and also do it enough times to lower then chance of coincidence, it's much more likely that this apparent difference between Burst and the six other nearly-identically-coded Scrapper powers is something to do with your armor set, something to do with the particular mobs, something to do with your slotting, something to do with your team, or just plain bad luck, than that radius code is broken, but only for Burst. Expand Yes, I understand this. And I realize that it may be something other than Burst as other people seem to not have the same issue I do. And That is also why I hypothesized in my statement above that it could be something with the armor set - which is SR - which doesn't have a taunt / aggro aura and might (?) be the culprit. I have looked into this phenomenon - perhaps not done deep testing as one should but I'd rather just play the game. I have compared Burst to similar AOEs across my scrappers. Same slotting, similar acc / to hit bonuses and buffs, various mob types. I have run this many, many times and I consistently get way less foes with Burst versus other attack sets. So, for me, it is repeatable. And my MA/SR doesn't have this issue and can consistently hit all surrounding foes. So, maybe not the armor. ?? Bad luck ?? - very well could be. I do have frequent bad luck. It is known to me the RNG hates me and this is not just a "saying" or perception - friends and teammates are always surprised by my consistent bad luck with the RNG on drops and things. But even then, I do get occasional good drops. But with Burst, it is very consistent that I get so few mobs in it despite being surrounded by foes. I'm not saying others have this issue. I am only stating my experience, that it is consistent for me, and is one of the factors that contribute to how frustrating KM can be to play - for me. But also despite this, I do like soloing my KM toon from time to time, even with my lackluster Burst. Maybe one day, I'll make a KM scrapper with a different armor and see if there is a difference there. But that's a long ways away as I have other power combos I want to try first.
Heatstroke Posted 54 minutes ago Posted 54 minutes ago On 5/7/2025 at 6:59 PM, Frozen Burn said: That's awesome and I find it fascinating. I love hearing other people's opinions on these things so thanks for sharing. For me, I hate Stalkers - not enough AOEs. Expand Elec/Shield... Stalker AoE Goodness 1
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