Different Axe builds, but which to choose?

[Sovera]

Been messing with Axe in Mids since I've been wanting to play a Scrapper and be damaging. My problem is that I like being tanky, and I like being tanky early which is why I stick to Tankers with whom I solo at +1x8 from level 15+ onwards. Scrappers have never quite been there for me in that aspect.

 

 

So I have this Axe/Rad. S/L/E resistances get capped with Barrier's 5%, there is a nominal 33%-ish defense to S/L/M so that a small purple puts those three at softcap for a bit of extra survival (no big tradeoffs for it). In the past I have found resistance based Scrappers pretty terrible as they are squishy, but Radiation Armor has tools for survival. Radiation Therapy heals, makes endurance problems a joke, AND hurts the enemies, Ground Zero does the same. Particle Barrier is a substantial alpha eater tool too.

 

I like the premise of wandering into a group of enemies and unloading four PbAoEs (Pendulum is pseudo PbAoE). Axe Cyclone takes very well to procs (70%) so it's triple procced. Everything smells like it would make any spawn have a bad day the moment it walks in.

 

Scrapper (Battle Axe - Rad Armor).mbd

 

 

Axe/Ninja is a staple. Softcapped defenses without Weave, crit from stealth with Shinobi-Iri (maybe worth investing a stealth IO to be completely invisible for setting up the initial crit), mediocre resistances, good endurance and heal clickies. To be honest it is petty but the clickie CC resistance is what is holding me back since it's always a nuisance to remember. Terrible DDR but kill-before-being-killed suits Scrappers. Three free powers to do whatever with.

 

Scrapper (Battle Axe - Ninja).mbd

 

 

Axe/Energy Armor is as basic as it gets. Also softcapped without Weave (including negative), same mediocre resistances, toggle CC instead of a clicky. Slow recharging heal because of the end discount that, honestly, is not needed in a set that has such a fast recharging Energy Drain. The extra defense from ED is just fluff as even catching 10 people in it will only give 3%. Mediocre DDR that won't stop cascading, but same as above. Two free powers to do whatever with.

 

Scrapper (Battle Axe - Energy Armor).mbd

[JayboH]

I have an Axe/Stone build for a brute if you want to convert.

[Sovera]

2 minutes ago, JayboH said:

I have an Axe/Stone build for a brute if you want to convert.

 

Nay, Stone has no agro aura for Scrappers. I Mids-d up one for Tankers but felt it would just be more of the same.

 

Thanks for the kind offer though o/

[JayboH]

12 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Nay, Stone has no agro aura for Scrappers.

 

There isn't a ton of sets that do.  There is a few that have a 300% aura I think but you are right, Mud Pots does not have it on Scrappers.

[Sovera]

8 minutes ago, JayboH said:

There isn't a ton of sets that do.  There is a few that have a 300% aura I think but you are right, Mud Pots does not have it on Scrappers.

 

Now that you mention it I'm not even sure that Ninjutsu has it. That would narrow it down to just two.

[JayboH]

14 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Now that you mention it I'm not even sure that Ninjutsu has it. That would narrow it down to just two.

Trying to check.  I think Energy Aura does.  Invulnerability does.  Radiation does.  Shield does.  Willpower does.

 

So 5 out of the 14 sets do, if I am reading it right.

 

EDIT:  odd, DNA siphon in Bio lists taunt in the hover text but I don't really see its taunt stats.

Edited March 21 by JayboH

[Hjarki]

2 hours ago, JayboH said:

Trying to check.  I think Energy Aura does.  Invulnerability does.  Radiation does.  Shield does.  Willpower does.

 

So 5 out of the 14 sets do, if I am reading it right.

 

EDIT:  odd, DNA siphon in Bio lists taunt in the hover text but I don't really see its taunt stats.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=scrapper_defense.bio_organic_armor.adaptation&at=scrapper

[nihilii]

10 hours ago, Sovera said:

Now that you mention it I'm not even sure that Ninjutsu has it. That would narrow it down to just two.

Can confirm no aggro on Nin. It's the opposite even, you become stealthy and get higher crit chance.

[Sovera]

Just now, nihilii said:

Can confirm no aggro on Nin. It's the opposite even, you become stealthy and get higher crit chance.

 

Welp, that reduces it to two 😄

 

Pretty tempted by the rad, but Energy Aura seems smarter. I do like early starts and defense sets is where the early start at.

[Sovera]

I've started the Axe/Energy Aura. I'll post a leveling build for those newer to the game. But dang, level 7 and I have yet to see a single crit. It was so curious I posted about it.

[Haijinx]

Can can confirm EA is pretty good at low level, and it's first Shield stacks with the P2W kinetic damper very well.

[Yomo Kimyata]

In scrapper-land, I don't actually have a battle axe/radiation armor which I actually find sort of surprising.  It should be amazing, and you should hardly need to worry about defenses with all that knockdown.

 

I have two different axe/ninjas due to scheduling error.  I'm making one into a thematic hover blaster which is unfairly effective, but yeah, the hide aura is annoying.  I want to see my outfit!  I don't think I have mastered the art of ninjitsu at high levels of performance yet -- I would appreciate a little more spot healing.

 

I have a lvl 50 axe/energy who is a Carnival nemesis.  It's an incredibly strong build.

 

Also for your consideration, how about Axe/Ice?   They come for the Axe Cyclone; they stay for the Chilling Embrace!

 

 

[Onlyasandwich]

34 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I want to see my outfit!

I truly wish these types of powers had a "see me!" option in power customization. 

[Sovera]

10 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

In scrapper-land, I don't actually have a battle axe/radiation armor which I actually find sort of surprising.  It should be amazing, and you should hardly need to worry about defenses with all that knockdown.

 

I have two different axe/ninjas due to scheduling error.  I'm making one into a thematic hover blaster which is unfairly effective, but yeah, the hide aura is annoying.  I want to see my outfit!  I don't think I have mastered the art of ninjitsu at high levels of performance yet -- I would appreciate a little more spot healing.

 

I have a lvl 50 axe/energy who is a Carnival nemesis.  It's an incredibly strong build.

 

Also for your consideration, how about Axe/Ice?   They come for the Axe Cyclone; they stay for the Chilling Embrace!

 

 

 

Hmm, after leveling the Axe/Energy to 32 I have to say... that the AoE is surprisingly... mediocre? I was expecting more from Axe. It's making me think about trying the Rad Armor variant and see how it survives

 

The Energy Armor was at something like 35-36% (with amplifiers) by level 20-ish and soloed Posi 1 and 2 reasonably while eating purples. I'm honestly not seeing Rad Armor manage this when all cooldowns are big in the low levels and resistance armors suck compared to defense.

 

 

I was surprised at how Axe managed to deplete the blue bar even with Recovery Serums.

[Yomo Kimyata]

11 hours ago, Sovera said:

I was surprised at how Axe managed to deplete the blue bar even with Recovery Serums.

 

It is indeed a hungry hungry hippo.

 

Most of my axe scrappers were started before they made axe into a top set, so my attitude is a little different!  I've leaned into the knockdown as a form of mitigation, and don't think I've even softcapped all my defenses.  I will put a FF +recharge into Axe Cylcone and Pendulum and I don't bother with Hasten, but it's a set where I will need generally to add some slotting to Health and Stamina.  For my Energy Aura, I don't have any problem with my blue bar, but I use Energy Drain often (and have a stun proc in it to further neuter the low level drone of sector 7G).

[JayboH]

This is actually bothering me now after looking that up earlier.  I wonder if I should start a different topic on it.

 

Every scrapper set that has a taunt aura has no damage aura.  That can't be coincidence.  The reason this bothers me is because scrappers already have the worst versions of damage auras out of all the melee classes.  Tanks get 50% bigger AOEs, yes?  Brute's damage auras get damage buffs via fury, yes?  Well, scrappers cannot get their damage auras to crit.  Someone correct me if any of this is wrong.

[Hjarki]

26 minutes ago, JayboH said:

Every scrapper set that has a taunt aura has no damage aura.

Cough. Bio Armor. Cough.

 

In any case, damage auras are not natively 'taunt auras' for any AT. The reason Brutes and Tankers get a 'taunt aura' out of abilities like Fiery Aura is that they taunt on all attacks, not because the power itself taunts. If you look at actual taunts like Against All Odds or Beta Decay, you'll notice they explicitly taunt (and then also apply Gauntlet/Fury).

 

The only true outliers are Super Reflexes and Regeneration. Both those sets have an explicit taunt aura for Tankers and/or Brutes but not for Scrappers.

 

[Onlyasandwich]

The scrapper auras that taunt are all the ones that scale based on nearby enemies. Their effectiveness would be strongly hampered without the taunt. 

 

That being said, it's a pretty big advantage, such that I actively avoid building scrappers without taunt auras. The runners are super obnoxious. 

Edited March 23 by Onlyasandwich

[JayboH]

1 hour ago, Hjarki said:

Cough. Bio Armor. Cough.

 

In any case, damage auras are not natively 'taunt auras' for any AT. The reason Brutes and Tankers get a 'taunt aura' out of abilities like Fiery Aura is that they taunt on all attacks, not because the power itself taunts. If you look at actual taunts like Against All Odds or Beta Decay, you'll notice they explicitly taunt (and then also apply Gauntlet/Fury).

 

The only true outliers are Super Reflexes and Regeneration. Both those sets have an explicit taunt aura for Tankers and/or Brutes but not for Scrappers.

 

Bio Armor is the outlier as mentioned earlier due to the adaptation option.  (EDIT: it's not an aura.  It's applied with a click via DNA Siphon.)  I didn't say damage auras were taunt auras.  I said the sets that have one don't have damage auras.

Edited March 23 by JayboH

[Hjarki]

8 hours ago, JayboH said:

Bio Armor is the outlier as mentioned earlier due to the adaptation option.  (EDIT: it's not an aura.  It's applied with a click via DNA Siphon.)  I didn't say damage auras were taunt auras.  I said the sets that have one don't have damage auras.

DNA Siphon does not taunt (except via Fury/Gauntlet for Brutes/Tankers). Evolving Armor does.

Edited March 24 by Hjarki

[Sovera]

I decided to try an Ice/Rad to dip my toes into Rad on a Scrapper. Ice helped in surviving and by Yin the set was beefy enough to survive without it. But the AoE wasn't super (again) despite Frost pulling the majority of the weight. Frozen Aura frankly sucks with double digit damage and without all the slots Ground Zero did not help much. Radiation Therapy is pretty nice once all slotted taking about half a +0 minion's HP. Not super amazing but it's nice when its real purpose is to replenish my blue bar.

 

The Super Stunners were too much for it (procced as it is instead of slotted properly for recharge) but Gamma Boost fed me so much endurance that even Super Stunners were manageable. Before Gamma Boost I was getting detoggled.

 

I found the ST lagging even with a fully slotted Freezing Touch and never did get past Yin as the slowness was getting to me (20 minutes elapsed before reaching the police station in the first mission, which is usually 10 minutes for my Tankers).

 

I'll leave the build anyway. Managed to fix the small hole in Negative and Toxic so S/L/E/N/T are capped (with Barrier) leaving only Fire/Cold/Psi.

 

Scrapper (Ice Melee - Rad Armor).mbd

 

 

 

But testing Rad Armor worked better than I thought even if Ice Patch (and Frost) did a lot of the pulling. I feel more confident to try Axe. I did a bit of tweaking of the original build I posted above and fixed the Negative small hole it had so that S/L/E/N are capped (with Barrier). I could have tried to finagle Toxic as well if only I had two more slots to play with which is making me look at Ground Zero.

 

To be honest I don't like Ground Zero. I don't like the long animation, I don't like the long recharge, and my one test with a character who had it fully procced the damage did not impress me either. But it's a nice initial burst and if my stint with the Ice/Bio taught me anything is that I can lure the mobs, open with BU + whatever power holds the 50% crit proc, then unload my AoEs. By then my Particle Shielding will have been eaten (surprisingly soaking little damage even fully slotted, almost feeling like it's soaking the full damage and not what damage goes past the toggles) which is when Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero can be used to both do damage and the small heal and get my green bar back up. Proceed with regular AoEs.

 

With RT I decided to remove the damage/recharge/endurance slot and put a heal/recharge/endurance for a small extra boost in healing for a small damage loss (295 VS 287). It felt better for leveling since it is the only source of heals and there are no sixth damage slots anyway. The small recharge/endurance helps a bit while barely eating into the proc chance.

 

But there might be something to be said in slotting an Overwhelming KD chance as the 6th for some extra mitigation though ( 9 endurance, 22 recharge 287 damage, 186 base heal + 37 heal per mob hit VS 11 endurance, 25 recharge, 303 damage, 147 base heal + 24 heal per mob hit + near certain AoE wide KD).

 

Scrapper (Battle Axe - Rad Armor).mbd

 

 

 

I'm tempted by a Fire Melee/Rad as well. Fire Melee is in a good spot and though Scrappers lack a second AoE (we do not mention Fire Breath in this house) RT and GZ are there to help. The ST is top notch and Cremate even comes with a place for FF to help RT&GZ.

 

Unlike Axe it does not need four ST attacks which frees up powers and slots so it has much better pacing than Axe allowing an early travel power (gasp) and early Gamma Boost (double gasp, and just in time for Synapse too!), also allowing for everything to be capped (with Barrier) with the exception of Fire/Cold/Psi and just enough S/L/Melee defense that a small purple softcaps as an extra layer for survival.

 

Scrapper (Fire Melee - Rad Armor).mbd

Edited March 24 by Sovera

[SomeGuy]

Out of the secondaries in your OP, Rad and EA have a taunt aura. EA's is fairly weak, but it is there.

 

Don't discount Inv (it has a taunt aura), and Inv is a pretty darn good secondary. Pretty easy to res cap S/L with inv, and get to HP cap with just activating Dull Pain. Also, not sure if Shield is an option too, but it also has a taunt aura. Slotting gets VERY tight with SD though. Or can be depending on how you build/play.

 

But out of the ones in your OP that have a taunt aura, I personally would give the vote towards EA or Rad. Both are VERY sturdy. Your preference there would be on your playstyle for sure. Rad is a resist based set and EA a defense one. I've personally been able to get more DPS out of Rad then EA, but EA definitely has more wiggle room build wise.

 

But I have, and very much enjoy, my BA/RAD.

 

*if you go Rad, you most likely won't consider taking Ground Zero. It really is superfluous AOE at that point. BA already has a LOT of AOE just baked in to it's attacks.

 

I personally only use three attacks in BA for ST stuff. Mileage may vary.

 

Also, Bio Armor has a Taunt:

 

Edited March 25 by SomeGuy

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 3/24/2024 at 2:42 PM, Sovera said:

But testing Rad Armor worked better than I thought

 

My style of playing scrappers is mainly through non-defense based secondaries, and by surviving in part through non-standard mitigation.  Someday I might write a guide, but this post is going to be my love letter to Radiation Armor, from worst to best.

 

Alpha Barrier; Proton Armor -- these are the two worst powers in the set, because all they do is what's on the label:  provide resistance.

 

Particle Shielding -- the third worst power.  Provides absorb, regeneration, and unenhanceable recovery.  Boo hoo.

 

Fallout Shelter -- mez protection, damage resistance, YAWN.  Oh wait, slow resistance!!!

 

Ground Zero -- Understandable to skip if you have enough AoE attacks, MAYBE!  90 second recharge means you can expect to have it up every 30 seconds or so.  Slot it with Achilles Heel for softening up the crowd before your next AoE.  Slot it with Glad Armor proc for the same purpose.  Slot it with Overwhelming Force proc to put them on their asses while you are doing it.  Your proc chances will be very favorable, if not maxed.  As you can see, I generally use this as a debuff power rather than an attack.  What?  It heals your friends?  Boo!  Who cares about them?!?

 

Gamma Boost -- Regeneration AND recovery, and more of whatever you have least of?  Debuff resistance?!?  

 

Beta Decay -- Are you kidding me?  Auto-hit defense and to hit debuff on your enemies.  Periodic resistance debuff from the Achilles Heel you put in there.  Scalable recharge for you AND a taunt aura?  Why don't they just throw in some unresistable damage as well?

 

Meltdown -- Not only does this do a lot of great things, but on a scrapper you will be resistance capped to most things with just the base slot (although I just slot it with 2x 50+5 recharge IOs).  Its "crash" is minor.

 

Radiation Therapy -- I don't know where to start with this, or where to stop.  There are so many ways to slot this that I wish I could ten slot it.  Just don't bother with accuracy, because it has an inherent 300% accuracy!!!  You can put your Crit Strikes proc here for activation every 15-20 seconds.  And the Avalanche proc for more knockdown.  And regeneration for 60 seconds that is enhanceable but, oh no, does not stack three times.  Crap!

 

This set is a power user's wet dream, and the only two downsides are the graphics, and that there are so many good powers that you may neglect your primary.

 

[Sovera]

I'm trying the Fire Melee/Rad and oof... that's a lot of damage. When the whole spawn (even bosses) die in the first 10 seconds of combat it's a good day to play a Scrapper.

 

But Rad is squishy as heck. I've only played it on a Tanker so I didn't notice it as much but on a Scrapper, as we level (and, to be fair, soloing at +1x8), it doesn't have the tools. Maybe if Radiation Therapy was properly slotted and geared towards heals. But as it is geared towards damage the small heal does help but without chasing recharge the set lacks a heal to recoup the constant damage.

 

That said I can feel it slowly getting in place. Started soloing Yin at 31 and it was okay. No slots to go around and feeling the squish being forced to eat a purple per fight. By level 37 (I restarted a few times farming XP) I found a good cadence of BU + Greater Fire Sword (fishing for a 50% proc) + Fire Sword Circle. Particle Shielding is pitiful even fully slotted and its recharge is enormous so it would be ablated in those first seconds. Follow up with Ground Zero (not yet slotted with procs and so mostly used for the small heal) + Radiation Therapy (looking for the heal, but welcoming the damage). This coincided with Greater Fire Sword and Fire Sword Circle coming off cooldown so another hit from it and SFC would finish cleaning the group. Depending on crits the boss would be done as well.

 

By then I no longer needed inspirations. Or I would. 80% I would be on top, and then 20% there would be so much incoming damage and no more clickies ended with me on the ground.

 

Even fully slotted the resistances are not enough to really keep me up (currently 50%-ish) and it's a matter of kill first, though I'm used it from my Fire Armor days. I was being stubborn and trying not to use inspirations but found that even a small purple would usually be enough to keep me safe.

 

 

Cremate reminded me of the good old days of playing Claws. That 100% chance (well, more like, 80-90% since the archaic 5% miss chance combined with Cremated sometimes not knocking down if the mob is doing an animation) allowing to be strategic, choosing to wait a second for it to recharge to knock a Freak Tank and then maul it while its getting up so it doesn't heal... Mmmmh, good times, good times.

 

Despite the build not being as sturdy as I'd like I'm still sticking to it because I'm enjoying the damage (which is the reason I abandoned my Tankers to try a Scrapper in the first place). My next level will have me slotting GZ for triple procs which will double its damage.

 

Ended up doing Yin in 57 minutes despite the big damage just because of the deaths and travelling back to the mission. Clamour wasn't terrible since she got whittled down and despite dying in the ambush thanks to her debuffing me she and the ambush still went down fast thanks to the AoE combo mentioned above.

 

 

Rad Armor is very pleasing for those damage oriented (and anyone playing Scrapper is that, right?). I find it does the same job as Fire Armor for Tankers who want to do do more damage and in particular lack good AoE from their primary. It doesn't increase pylon times, but that's a niche artificial test. We don't spend 2-3 minutes hitting things outside of AVs and those are 5% of the game time.

 

What we DO spend a lot of time doing is progressing through missions be it solo or in a team and for that Rad Armor works well.

 

For my brief teaming during Synapse I took to alternating RT and BU for the extra AoE oomph. One group BU + FSC, the next ground FSC + RT. Worked pretty well.

 

 

I was a bit tempted to play with with Claws considering Shockwave would add survivability, but Claws is the one set in all the sets that does not need Radiation Armor since Claws is self-contained in terms of AoE. There might be something to say about not picking Shockwave and instead rock the three PbAoEs and I could see it. I did that with my Fire/Claws Tanker since I prefered to be in the thick of things instead of bouncing to readjust for Shockwave.

 

But even so I'm not sure. Spin has a beautiful 9.2 recharge that is unmatched anywhere and it probably does not care about extra AoE. I dunno, I might talk myself into it.

[Sovera]

Well, I talked myself into making the Claws/Rad build at least. A blasphemous one without Shockwave (but it's easy to just ditch GZ for Shockwave).

 

All capped (with Barrier) except F/C/P and enough defense that a smell purple softcaps as a little something extra for survival.

 

Scrapper (Claws Rad).mbd

 

 

Claws/Stone is what I'd really like to try though, but fie to runners. Heck, even with Rad Armor I get runners. Maybe I should slot a taunt in Beta Decay instead of an endurance reduction.

 

 

Another one I hadn't considered would be Rad/Rad, but Devastating(gly slow) Blow holds me back and the 'fix' to IG without giving a tune up for the rest of the set hasn't it in a great spot. But a little extra heal makes sense for a resist set (heck, almost as if they were meant to be paired!?).

Edited March 27 by Sovera