Another question for you more Experienced Players out there (Scrapper Secondaries)

[KITANYA]

In your opinion, out of these three, which Secondary is performing better?

The one that works in "most" situations, and is less "clicky" and require less management?

 

Super Reflexes

Willpower

Energy Aura

 

Which ones are regarded as Top 3 Defensive Secondaries (out of all of them) by the General Playerbase?

 

 

Thanks!

[Haijinx]

Of those 3 WP is the most set and forget.  You just turn on you toggles and go.  So you can just attack attack attack.   But it's also the one of those 3 mostly to get you killed.  

 

SR is great but the AOE progression kinda stinks on Scrapper.  But it's mostly set and forget. 

 

EA is easier to kill than SR, but usually you can't tell the difference.  It has great clickies though, which you don't often need.

 

 

[Uun]

SR performs very well and has nothing to click (other than putting Practiced Brawler on auto). The T9 is skippable. It's a positional defense set with resistance that kicks in when your health drops below 60%. With IOs it's very easy to soft cap all your defenses. You have to be situationally aware of foes with auto-hit powers or very high to-hit buffs that ignore your defenses, but for the most part nothing can touch you. 

 

Willpower is a hybrid regen/+hp set with supplemental resists and defense. It has nothing to click other than the T9. It does great in most situations until it doesn't. It's very susceptible to debuffs, in particular end drain. Also has a taunt aura. I prefer it on a brute, takes better advantage of the hp boosts. 

 

EA is also a defense set, but uses typed rather than positional defense. You can soft cap to most damage types, but it only gets psi and toxic defense in the T9. It provides supplemental resistance that's always on, as well as providing a very good heal and excellent end management tools. Also has a taunt aura. While somewhat more clicky, it also provides more utility.

 

I consider SR and EA to be top tier and would place WP a tier below.

[lemming]

I prefer WP, but the other two are better in most content.

[Koopak]

WP is over hyped but it's litteraly zero clicky with a good build because SoW isnt worth much.

 

Of the 3 Energy Aura is the strongest hands down. It's capable of defense caps, has an end tool, and an actually good T9 that you can mitigate the crash on.

 

Of all sets, well two ways to look at it. Scrapper is a DPS AT so by that metric

 

Bio Armor > Firey Aura > Electric Armor > Energy Aura = Super Reflexes > Radiation Armor

 

It's an armored set so by durability metrics, something like.

 

Invulnerability > Stone Armor > Ice Armor = Energy Aura > Bio Armor = Dark Armor

 

Overall the undisputable king is bio armor, as it is unrivaled in DPS except by a damage capped Firey Aura and even then not by much. Meanwhile having one of the better durability values of any armor set AND that durability is in the form of max hp, Regen, and absorb all of which are much less common in team support than defense and resistance buffs. And to top it all off it gives passive endurance, active endurance tools, and applies -res for your team to boot.

[Haijinx]

I wouldn't say WP is over hyped, but it cn become a nail biter if you are taking alphas at 54×8 without some outside buffs.   I guess that's where the self rez comes in.  

 

A tanker using WP doesn't have that problem.  

 

A brute does.

 

EA and SR are both can just leap in.

[Captain Fabulous]

EA is the best of the 3 IMO. It has 2 click abilities, but Energize you can put on auto and forget about it leaving Energy Drain as your only active defensive click ability.

SR would be my second choice; WP the third. I've never understood all the love WP gets. I've always thought it was kinda meh.

[Koopak]

When I say WP is overhyped I mean what Captain Fabulous is hinting at. I'm not using overhyped as a stand in for 'i think it's bad' I'm using the word very intentionally. Willpower and Radiation both have VERY evangelical players who talk up the sets as much stronger than they are.

 

That doesn't mean the sets are bad, just that they get miscast in the discourse a lot. Rad is solid, Will is solid on Tanks, okay on Brutes, kinda low tier everywhere else. What Will does is be thoughtless. You toggle up and go and for +4 radios it'll do just fine. But so will a blapper so not a big mark of power.

[Riverdusk]

Energy Aura would be my favorite among those.  Similar to SR in a lot of ways, but I think it is more survivable than SR in more situations.  You face anything with significant +tohit and SR can crumble pretty fast.  Non-positional psi can wreck SR as well, although that is pretty rare (I do remember running into Malaise and getting badly surprised). 

 

Energy has extra heal, regen, and resistance to fall back on.  It also has two endurance tools.  No real psi defense outside of tier 9, but it does have a base of psi resistance now and further psi resistance is actually fairly easy to build up (although it does cost some slots for all those +psi resist IO's).  The tier 9 is more powerful than most and worth considering, since you have those endurance tools to help recover from the crash.

 

Also a huge difference, scrapper Energy has a taunt aura, SR does not.  If you hate chasing after runners, energy wins by a mile.

 

Willpower can be good if you want a truly non-clicky play and it does alright.  I can usually build it so that it still soft caps most defenses as well as having its great regen.  You just have to be careful as its defense debuff resistance is pitifully low.  It does have a taunt aura.  Just for fun, it has one of the very few self rezzes I'd actually consider taking.  It has some nice buffs so if you do get killed you can have fun with hitting it and yelling, "You've only made me stronger!" 😄

[KITANYA]

On 3/12/2024 at 2:10 PM, Haijinx said:

Of those 3 WP is the most set and forget.  You just turn on you toggles and go.  So you can just attack attack attack.   But it's also the one of those 3 mostly to get you killed.  

 

SR is great but the AOE progression kinda stinks on Scrapper.  But it's mostly set and forget. 

 

EA is easier to kill than SR, but usually you can't tell the difference.  It has great clickies though, which you don't often need.

 

 

 

Thanks so much Hajinx!

[KITANYA]

On 3/12/2024 at 2:14 PM, Uun said:

SR performs very well and has nothing to click (other than putting Practiced Brawler on auto). The T9 is skippable. It's a positional defense set with resistance that kicks in when your health drops below 60%. With IOs it's very easy to soft cap all your defenses. You have to be situationally aware of foes with auto-hit powers or very high to-hit buffs that ignore your defenses, but for the most part nothing can touch you. 

 

Willpower is a hybrid regen/+hp set with supplemental resists and defense. It has nothing to click other than the T9. It does great in most situations until it doesn't. It's very susceptible to debuffs, in particular end drain. Also has a taunt aura. I prefer it on a brute, takes better advantage of the hp boosts. 

 

EA is also a defense set, but uses typed rather than positional defense. You can soft cap to most damage types, but it only gets psi and toxic defense in the T9. It provides supplemental resistance that's always on, as well as providing a very good heal and excellent end management tools. Also has a taunt aura. While somewhat more clicky, it also provides more utility.

 

I consider SR and EA to be top tier and would place WP a tier below.

 

Thanks for this Uun! Much appreciated!

[KITANYA]

On 3/12/2024 at 7:38 PM, Koopak said:

Of all sets, well two ways to look at it. Scrapper is a DPS AT so by that metric

 

Bio Armor > Firey Aura > Electric Armor > Energy Aura = Super Reflexes > Radiation Armor

 

It's an armored set so by durability metrics, something like.

 

Invulnerability > Stone Armor > Ice Armor = Energy Aura > Bio Armor = Dark Armor

 

Overall the undisputable king is bio armor, as it is unrivaled in DPS except by a damage capped Firey Aura and even then not by much. Meanwhile having one of the better durability values of any armor set AND that durability is in the form of max hp, Regen, and absorb all of which are much less common in team support than defense and resistance buffs. And to top it all off it gives passive endurance, active endurance tools, and applies -res for your team to boot.

 

Too many to quote, thank you all who posted!

 

I have learned a lot from Koopak, Hajinx, Uun and everyone! 🙂

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 3/12/2024 at 8:30 AM, KITANYA said:

Which ones are regarded as Top 3 Defensive Secondaries (out of all of them) by the General Playerbase?

 

I suspect that the G.P. will rank them Super Reflexes, Willpower, Energy Aura, but I would personally rank them Energy Aura, big gap, Super Reflexes, big gap, Willpower.

 

Super Reflexes is an I win button for casual play, there is no denying.  It's pretty straightforward to soft-cap your defenses and max out your defense debuff resistance, so you will generally only be defeated when either sheer numbers overwhelm the RNG and you breakdown, or you run into something that is designed to work around defenses.  Your secondary defenses (like resistance, healing, etc.) are minimal.

 

Willpower is the monarch of set and forget; once you have your toggles going, you will be set for the vast majority of content and it will be layered mitigation, so you've got some defense, some resistance, some healing.  The problem is that it is very easy to get over your skis with Willpower in the endgame, and the T9 is not a very good power to hit when you get in trouble.  For casual content, it's awesome, but it's also very easy to faceplant in end game.

 

Energy Aura is a much more active secondary, and has a lot of active tools to manage your character over and above protection, namely endurance recovery.  It probably has a much higher learning curve than the other two, but rewards that learning with performance.  I wish the defense power didn't provide stealth, but it is what it is.

[Greldek]

I'd agree with Yomo, they definitely rank differently depending on how casually you play.

And I'd agree that Energy Aura outshines the other two by a lot if you're going to invest in IO sets, and are willing to play it "right".  If you just slap in SO's and play casually SR probably wins.

[Psiphon]

Not mentioned by the OP and surprisingly by anyone else (that I saw) but Shield is my Secondary of choice. 

You can cap defence to all positions, has some resistance, plus HP, plus damage and a nuke. What's not to love. 

[KITANYA]

3 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I suspect that the G.P. will rank them Super Reflexes, Willpower, Energy Aura, but I would personally rank them Energy Aura, big gap, Super Reflexes, big gap, Willpower.

 

Super Reflexes is an I win button for casual play, there is no denying.  It's pretty straightforward to soft-cap your defenses and max out your defense debuff resistance, so you will generally only be defeated when either sheer numbers overwhelm the RNG and you breakdown, or you run into something that is designed to work around defenses.  Your secondary defenses (like resistance, healing, etc.) are minimal.

 

Willpower is the monarch of set and forget; once you have your toggles going, you will be set for the vast majority of content and it will be layered mitigation, so you've got some defense, some resistance, some healing.  The problem is that it is very easy to get over your skis with Willpower in the endgame, and the T9 is not a very good power to hit when you get in trouble.  For casual content, it's awesome, but it's also very easy to faceplant in end game.

 

Energy Aura is a much more active secondary, and has a lot of active tools to manage your character over and above protection, namely endurance recovery.  It probably has a much higher learning curve than the other two, but rewards that learning with performance.  I wish the defense power didn't provide stealth, but it is what it is.

 

Thanks so much for this Yomo!

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, Greldek said:

I'd agree with Yomo, they definitely rank differently depending on how casually you play.

And I'd agree that Energy Aura outshines the other two by a lot if you're going to invest in IO sets, and are willing to play it "right".  If you just slap in SO's and play casually SR probably wins.

 

On just SO's Willpower is probably the best of those 3

 

Since a SR still needs a chunk of defense to soft cap and it has no other tools. 

 

EA is a great set for IO builds though, since you can slot all sorts of goodies in the set, no need to wait on the fighting pool, etc.  

 

 

[BrandX]

Taking IOs into account...I felt SR was the one that lived the longest.

[Frosticus]

I like EA (as you can see), but to me it crumbles very quickly in the presence of def debuffs, or psi/toxic damage. To the point you have to avoid those mobs entirely for conventional builds. But that's just my experience with it. 

Of those three I think SR is the most robust with a moderate IO build, not much they need to fear until you really push things. 

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Agreed that defensively speaking EA > SR > willpower once IOs are part of the picture, especially if budget is not a concern. Also, EA can be made noticeably sturdier against defense debuffs by ...

1. having a fairly noticeable cushion of defense values above whatever softcap applies to whatever is being run. So, for regular content having smash / lethal defense in the 50s, for example, instead of just over 45%. That is absolutely doable with EA without necessarily having to sacrifice much on damage. 

2. Taking the ageless radial destiny incarnate, which has a very high ceiling of debuff resistance for part of its cycle and even at the low point it offers 21.25% debuff resistance. That adds to 50%-ish defense debuff resistance from EA to take a substantial bite out of each defense debuff received. This has the side-benefit of improving global recharge, which increases the availability of key defensive clickies and can also boost DPS. 

3. Monitor how many debuffs are being received in a short time and being willing to back away to reduce or eliminate incoming defense debuffs for a handful of seconds. 

Knowing when to temporarily back away takes some experience to figure out. But, the build-related choices above will, by themselves, stop most potential defense debuff cascades before they might otherwise begin.