harder content soloing / ITFs +4/x8 build suggestions

[R jobbus]

Hey so I've only been playing a year or so but I've been getting more and more into soloing, and I was wondering what the best builds are for scrappers for soloing harder content at +4/x8, ITFs, AVs, etc. If you guys have any builds you'd like to post, I'd be very interested. 

 

I've been doing alot of soloing on my tanker, but I've wanted to get some scrappers going and I've heard about titan/bio alot, so I'm interested in trying that, but I'm unsure if it's been nerfed or if it still works like the older posts I'd read seem to suggest.

 

My one question also was, I've done some ITFs at +4/x8 with my /willpower scrapper variations, claws, katana, and while my katana/willpower scrapper can easily tank an s/l meteor farm and can fall asleep on +4/x8 PI radios while things hit her just from /willpower and DA alone without even popping melee hybrid, she just gets demolished very quickly in ITFs, which I'm assuming is the res debuffs that come with the harder content of this game. Is there any way to negate this for a /willpower scrapper? Or is it just gonna be hard to make up for the sheer amount of stuff coming at you without being a tanker/brute/bio or something.

 

Again, any soloing builds and/or suggestions you'd like to post, I'm all ears, cause my friends don't play too often and I'm trying to get more into soloing hard content.

 

Below is roughly the build my katana/willpower is using, though I changed it slightly to get hasten and etc (Still love the original build just changed mine slightly for recharge/damage purposes)

Immortal Thrax - Scrapper (Katana - Willpower) 4.mbd

[Ston]

Willpower will probably never be able to solo that difficulty on an ITF. It doesn't have enough HP/Regen to mitigate the incoming damage. Willpower and Regen are, IMO, the weakest of all Scrapper secondaries overall. They don't really have any meaningful debuff resistance and no offensive tools.

[R jobbus]

9 hours ago, Ston said:

Willpower will probably never be able to solo that difficulty on an ITF. It doesn't have enough HP/Regen to mitigate the incoming damage. Willpower and Regen are, IMO, the weakest of all Scrapper secondaries overall. They don't really have any meaningful debuff resistance and no offensive tools.

what would you recommend for a secondary then for soloing hard stuff or doing a +4/x8 ITF for scrapper then? I have enjoyed my /willpower toons but i can see what you mean when it comes to the lack of debuff resistance

[Uun]

Because of the lower resist cap, defense sets perform better on scrappers than resist sets. The defense sets with the highest defense debuff resistance (DDR) are SR, Shield and Energy Aura. SR is the easiest to soft cap defense and also has capped defense debuff resistance (DDR). Shield has less DDR but has +hp and +dmg. Energy Aura has typed (instead of positional) defense and has holes to toxic and psi attacks outside of the T9, but has a heal and end management tools. 

[Without_Pause]

Dark with the previously mentioned Def based sets is practically cheat code for doing harder stuff since Dark has a heal, which SR and Shield benefit from, -ToHit Debuffs, and ToF offers a bit of mitigation. 

[Thraxen]

I would take it as a challenge now.  DA helps with defense. Could easily get aid self which would help with soloing I guess. I almost never solo and find it boring. But katana has some places for the -resist procs too which would help with avs. 

[hejtmane]

Energy Aura also does while I have soloed +2 with Katana/rad and Ice/EA and dm/sd

 

Not tried +4 solo I am not sure I want to spend the time on the AV fights

 

EA has + recharge, heal, debuff resistance, taunt aura

 

I think EA is under rated in it's survivability in end game content

 

[Without_Pause]

6 hours ago, hejtmane said:

I think EA is under rated in it's survivability in end game content

It is widely considered one of the best. The narrative has been it hasn't been ported to Tankers as it would be 'too good.'

[R jobbus]

i mean.. I have beaten a +4/x8 ITF with my claws/wp scrapper, but it simpy doesn't work unless you are careful about how many mobs you're pulling and how quickly you can take them out/keep them in kd. it's fine just it takes longer than it should, consider there doesn't seem to be anything wp can do about defense debuffs.

 

 I even tried loading characters into the beta server and giving them ageless radial which adds some defense debuff res, but it's too short of a time to really amount to anything if it's a large group, unless you can really melt the entire group. but on that difficulty level, with centurions and etc deflecting quite alot, it doesn't really seem worth it for a build that has no natural ddr.

 

I'll probably give SR a go since I have literally never tried it. I know alot of people really like it, and the general jist I get from it is that it's great until you get hit. but I at least am not worried about influence so I can invest in it pretty heavily if i decide I like it. EA sounds good too. I'll try to avoid sd since I already am using SD on a tanker and it's great, just trying to branch out some. 

 

Any SR recommendations before I start tinkering? I have repeatedly seen that dark with SR is good so i may try that. dark or claws

 

 

Edited July 5 by R jobbus

[Uun]

If you're building specifically for the ITF, consider Psi Melee. Psi damage makes quick work of the Minotaurs and Cyclops. Psi Melee isn't top tier, but it's quite serviceable. (I ended up with a Psi/SR scrapper in last year's slot machine challenge.) Alternatively, you could add Psi Mastery to whatever primary you select.

[BrandX]

On 7/3/2024 at 12:47 PM, Ston said:

Willpower will probably never be able to solo that difficulty on an ITF. It doesn't have enough HP/Regen to mitigate the incoming damage. Willpower and Regen are, IMO, the weakest of all Scrapper secondaries overall. They don't really have any meaningful debuff resistance and no offensive tools.

 

Going to have to agree with this.  I soloed (no Incarnates) ITF with a DB/WP Scrapper, but it wasn't at 4/8.  Incarnates would make it easier for sure.

 

Honestly, I was wondering if Bio Tank may not be one of the better picks for soloing.  Offensive mode is going to help it's ST DPS a lot, while being tough and sturdy.

[Ston]

Here’s someone doing it with wm/bio if you need inspiration.

 

Bio, Rad, EA, Shield, SR are probably your best bets on a Scrapper.

 

 

Edited July 5 by Ston

[R jobbus]

1 hour ago, Ston said:

Here’s someone doing it with wm/bio if you need inspiration.

 

Bio, Rad, EA, Shield, SR are probably your best bets on a Scrapper.

 

 

 

lol this is awesome but i have no idea how they're doing that. alot of the time he's not staying in groups for an extended period which makes sense but when he does, i dont think the builds ive tried can do that. but they were both high end builds from other topics that similarly covered the crazy soloability of tw/bio, so i dont know. im probably doing something wrong.

 

but I swear I'm trying what this person is. all toggles going, defensive mode, use dna siphon and albative when needed, parasitic etc then use AOEs and kd to keep them subdued but my toons just ends up taking big big damage once the debuffs begin, like to the point where you just cant do anything.

 

did they make +4 harder or something recently? This vid is from 3 years ago, along with alot of those topics I was reading. I hope not since I hope im just learning how to play right lol, but I vaguely remember somebody saying +4 could be more difficult than before. i could be mistaken though.

 

thanks for the vid though very awesome

 

 

[Ston]

35 minutes ago, R jobbus said:

 

lol this is awesome but i have no idea how they're doing that. alot of the time he's not staying in groups for an extended period which makes sense but when he does, i dont think the builds ive tried can do that. but they were both high end builds from other topics that similarly covered the crazy soloability of tw/bio, so i dont know. im probably doing something wrong.

 

but I swear I'm trying what this person is. all toggles going, defensive mode, use dna siphon and albative when needed, parasitic etc then use AOEs and kd to keep them subdued but my toons just ends up taking big big damage once the debuffs begin, like to the point where you just cant do anything.

 

did they make +4 harder or something recently? This vid is from 3 years ago, along with alot of those topics I was reading. I hope not since I hope im just learning how to play right lol, but I vaguely remember somebody saying +4 could be more difficult than before. i could be mistaken though.

 

thanks for the vid though very awesome

 

 

 

ITF is kind of a niche thing to solo. A majority of your survivability will come down to defense debuff resistance. You’ll want to take Ageless Radial to boost that. And monitor it constantly. Whenever it starts dipping down, you need to disengage, hibernate, etc. 

 

Once those mobs get the cascading -def going on you, you’re pretty much out of luck. So it just comes down to avoiding that. 

 

As an example, watch how they handle the situation at 24:20 in the video. Once you get hit with a few attacks and your defense and defense debuff resistance are low, you need to run away or kite until your resources are off cooldown (Ageless Radial, Hibernate, etc) 

 

IMO, this challenge isn’t the best indicator of how a build performs. It has a very specific set of damage and effects you need to mitigate (lethal damage, negative energy damage, recharge debuffs, defense debuffs). If you’re on a build that handles those natively (like an SR or Shield tanker), you can do this in your sleep.

Edited July 5 by Ston

[R jobbus]

11 minutes ago, Ston said:

 

ITF is kind of a niche thing to solo. A majority of your survivability will come down to defense debuff resistance. You’ll want to take Ageless Radial to boost that. And monitor it constantly. Whenever it starts dipping down, you need to disengage, hibernate, etc. 

 

Once those mobs get the cascading -def going on you, you’re pretty much out of luck. So it just comes down to avoiding that. 

 

As an example, watch how they handle the situation at 24:20 in the video. Once you get hit with a few attacks and your defense and defense debuff resistance are low, you need to run away or kite until your resources are off cooldown (Ageless Radial, Hibernate, etc) 

 

IMO, this challenge isn’t the best indicator of how a build performs. It has a very specific set of damage and effects you need to mitigate (lethal damage, negative energy damage, recharge debuffs, defense debuffs). If you’re on a build that handles those natively (like an SR or Shield tanker), you can do this in your sleep.

 

Yeah, I can see what you mean. that makes more sense about running away and monitoring basically the most threatening aspect of ITFs which seems to be the defense debuff.

 

And also yeah I just ran through the entire set on my tanker at +4/x8, it took a while but it wasn't particularly scary at any point lol.

 

But what would be a good indicator of how a build performs? like, solo wise. I just liked doing ITFs cause it's something different I hadn't done before

[Ston]

9 minutes ago, R jobbus said:

 

Yeah, I can see what you mean. that makes more sense about running away and monitoring basically the most threatening aspect of ITFs which seems to be the defense debuff.

 

And also yeah I just ran through the entire set on my tanker at +4/x8, it took a while but it wasn't particularly scary at any point lol.

 

But what would be a good indicator of how a build performs? like, solo wise. I just liked doing ITFs cause it's something different I hadn't done before

 

It’s pretty hard to come up with a good test for that because there are too many factors. Best to just try it out against a variety of enemy groups.

 

A build that is amazing for 4* hardmode TFs might be terrible for solo’ing +4/x8. 

 

A build that can solo +4/x8 ITF might be terrible at solo’ing Rularuu.

 

IMO, it’s best to build around stats that help you regardless of enemy groups (max HP, regen, healing, absorb, debuff resistance, movement speed) and then getting any other stats from temp powers, incarnate powers, inspirations, teammate buffs.. (resist, defense, etc).

 

In my experience, this allows you to perform well on most powersets against max difficulty content assuming you’re bringing a good kit of buffs, insps, etc.

 

If you don’t want to use outside buffs like that, your choice of power combos and playstyles will be very limited.

Edited July 5 by Ston

[Frosticus]

58 minutes ago, R jobbus said:

did they make +4 harder or something recently? This vid is from 3 years ago, along with alot of those topics I was reading. I hope not since I hope im just learning how to play right lol, but I vaguely remember somebody saying +4 could be more difficult than before. i could be mistaken though.

 

A little bit. They changed the way typed def works so that s/l def isn't quite as all inclusive as it once was (although that wouldn't change much in the ITF). Also I think they buffed/fixed the way they use phalanx fighting making romans quite a bit better at dodging when they clump up.

 

The latter can cause you to wiff which means you have to survive that much more.

 

I don't think there is a singular test that is going to give you a blanket answer of whether you can solo well or not, and who determines what is well?

That said if you can do a 4x8 ITF you  probably won't be squished in most content, although you may not be successful either. 

[Without_Pause]

As someone who tries to solo 'all the maps' as high as I can tolerate, I feel like any armor set has a mob which they fear. I have builds which default to +3x8 and be forced to go +0x8 if that just to get through specific maps. Def and DDR is #1 for being able to survive, and yet there are mobs which have such a high ToHit you can feel a bit naked. Res would be second, but again, you aren't getting DDR. Once Debuffs start to happen, those builds can fall in breath taking fashion. There's simply too many Debuffs which can cripple a build. I feel like there is a Red side mob with an LT which does -Recharge and -End. Needless to say that was a rather interesting arc to go through. Even builds with some protection, see Stone and End Drain, can find itself sucking down blues soloing a map with nothing but Mu set at x8. 

[BrandX]

4 hours ago, Ston said:

 

ITF is kind of a niche thing to solo. A majority of your survivability will come down to defense debuff resistance. You’ll want to take Ageless Radial to boost that. And monitor it constantly. Whenever it starts dipping down, you need to disengage, hibernate, etc. 

 

Once those mobs get the cascading -def going on you, you’re pretty much out of luck. So it just comes down to avoiding that. 

 

As an example, watch how they handle the situation at 24:20 in the video. Once you get hit with a few attacks and your defense and defense debuff resistance are low, you need to run away or kite until your resources are off cooldown (Ageless Radial, Hibernate, etc) 

 

IMO, this challenge isn’t the best indicator of how a build performs. It has a very specific set of damage and effects you need to mitigate (lethal damage, negative energy damage, recharge debuffs, defense debuffs). If you’re on a build that handles those natively (like an SR or Shield tanker), you can do this in your sleep.

 

While I wasn't at 4/8 on my DB/WP, when I soloed ITF, I think that is what some people forget.  KNOW WHEN TO RUN AWAY!  😛

 

I had to run away and reset on Rommy multiple times before I did it without dying.

 

 

[SomeGuy]

EA, Rad, or Bio. Top three. Be smart, Use insp when necessary. Run the **** away when needed.

 

Don't even contemplate rolling regen or willpower for this.

[Murcielago]

My dark/shield, Murcielago, can solo most content.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 7/3/2024 at 9:22 AM, R jobbus said:

she just gets demolished very quickly in ITFs, which I'm assuming is the res debuffs that come with the harder content of this game. Is there any way to negate this for a /willpower scrapper? Or is it just gonna be hard to make up for the sheer amount of stuff coming at you without being a tanker/brute/bio or something.

 

This sounds a lot like a DDR issue rather than a res debuff issue (maybe both).  All the secondaries mentioned as suggestions are defense based and have at least some level of defense debuff resistance.  That certainly makes endgame content a lot easier.

 

What I tend to do with non-DDR secondaries is take Ageless Radial, and if I see that I am getting debuffed I punch it.  It does not eliminate current debuffs (they will generally expire quickly) but should keep you from cascading defense failure.

[Doomguide2005]

On 7/7/2024 at 7:01 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

This sounds a lot like a DDR issue rather than a res debuff issue (maybe both).  All the secondaries mentioned as suggestions are defense based and have at least some level of defense debuff resistance.  That certainly makes endgame content a lot easier.

     This is it when it comes to survival.  The Cimerorans are all about defense debuffs and initiating a cascade failure.   The more DDR the better.  Or build in excess defense over the cap preferably equal to what their debuff would be.  Now it takes two blows to drop you under the cap (and your odds of initiating cascade failure go from 0.05 to 0.0025) or pop purple.

     Negative energy damage is the next big issue.  Primarily from 1) mission two and 2) Rom's Nictus pals particularly the auto hit Nictus version.

     And yes they fixed how their defense works and it can stack up and turn things into a whiff fest.  Either move so they separate dropping their buffs or pop yellow(s)

 

     If you want to test your survivability vs Cimerorans hop over the fortress walls onto the same interior you'd face in mission 4.   The only difference is no Rommy and his Nictus.

Edited July 11 by Doomguide2005

[Linea]

Soloing a +4x8 ITF with Kat/WP IS doable, if that's what you really want to do.  But it definitely is NOT optimal.  I've soloed a +4x8 ITF with effectively everything imaginable including specifically Kat/Regen, Kat/WP, and Kat/Bio.  Someone, not me, even soloed a +4x8 ITF with a Kat/Regen, no temps, no inspirations, etc.   (and a petless mm of all gwawd waffle things)

Of the heal-tank armors, I generally rate them as: Bio > WP > Regen.  And even the Kat/Bio has to be careful to limit aggro and watch defense numbers obsessively.  Kat/Bio is probably my number one favorite most fun scrapper.   (EnM/EnA is my most powerful most durable scrapper. Favorite, Fun, Powerful, and Durable are all 4 completely different things.)

 

Running into a room and jumping into the middle of 5 or 6 groups will kill you.  Even one group can kill you.  Proactively Anticipate instead of Reacting, Ease in, use DA, Monitor Defense, use Inspirations as needed, Use Ageless +DDR,  Kite, Active Mitigations, Soft Controls,  .... Shadowmeld, Hybrid, Void Judgement -damage, Rune, Kinetic Dampeners, Wedding Band, Lore Pets, Stun Grenades, KB Grenades, .... there are probably dozens if not hundreds of things you can do, other than charging in and hoping Regen/HPS will save you, because it won't.

 

Standard Cimmie Test for Armors:   Take one of the cimmie repeatables, find a spot with two groups, 4 bosses, collect them all up, make sure the 4 bosses are aggroed and then stay at aggro cap.   Killing is not allowed, if you're an active mitigation build just swap targets around so you don't kill any and let the surgeons heal them  (there are some active mitigation builds that will still kill everything, so this may not work for every build).  The point is to stand there and learn how to take everything they can dish out for 10 minutes.  That means learning how to monitor for and mitigate the -defense debuffs, and those 4 bosses are the primary source of those debuffs.   A cascade failure will usually start with one of the bosses landing a hit, then cascade to death in often less than a few seconds.  Part of what you can learn is literally "listening".  There's a sound when that bad one hits, and a pattern to the sounds when you start failing.  There's also a sound in hard-mode when the hostless are going to spawn, even if you miss all the other warnings, if you HEAR that hostless sound, it means GTFO.  Once you can pass this test, soloing the ITF is just doing the same thing on a larger more comprehensive scale.

 

Recommended Armors( for 75% resist cap ATs):  Defense-Cap Based DDR Capable Armors.  I generally do not recommend resist armors for 75% resist cap ATs.   The heal armors are going to have similar issues to the resist armors, but they are also so much fun.  But Still, I would not recommend Regen.  WP is 50/50 and is probably the lowest rated armor I'd recommend.  I simply love BIO even if the defense armors typically fair better.   Bio is just so much fun.  So I do recommend WP and Bio, but most players will get more mileage out of the defense armors.

[R jobbus]

On 7/11/2024 at 12:09 PM, Linea said:

Soloing a +4x8 ITF with Kat/WP IS doable, if that's what you really want to do.  But it definitely is NOT optimal.  I've soloed a +4x8 ITF with effectively everything imaginable including specifically Kat/Regen, Kat/WP, and Kat/Bio.  Someone, not me, even soloed a +4x8 ITF with a Kat/Regen, no temps, no inspirations, etc.   (and a petless mm of all gwawd waffle things)

Of the heal-tank armors, I generally rate them as: Bio > WP > Regen.  And even the Kat/Bio has to be careful to limit aggro and watch defense numbers obsessively.  Kat/Bio is probably my number one favorite most fun scrapper.   (EnM/EnA is my most powerful most durable scrapper. Favorite, Fun, Powerful, and Durable are all 4 completely different things.)

 

Running into a room and jumping into the middle of 5 or 6 groups will kill you.  Even one group can kill you.  Proactively Anticipate instead of Reacting, Ease in, use DA, Monitor Defense, use Inspirations as needed, Use Ageless +DDR,  Kite, Active Mitigations, Soft Controls,  .... Shadowmeld, Hybrid, Void Judgement -damage, Rune, Kinetic Dampeners, Wedding Band, Lore Pets, Stun Grenades, KB Grenades, .... there are probably dozens if not hundreds of things you can do, other than charging in and hoping Regen/HPS will save you, because it won't.

 

Standard Cimmie Test for Armors:   Take one of the cimmie repeatables, find a spot with two groups, 4 bosses, collect them all up, make sure the 4 bosses are aggroed and then stay at aggro cap.   Killing is not allowed, if you're an active mitigation build just swap targets around so you don't kill any and let the surgeons heal them  (there are some active mitigation builds that will still kill everything, so this may not work for every build).  The point is to stand there and learn how to take everything they can dish out for 10 minutes.  That means learning how to monitor for and mitigate the -defense debuffs, and those 4 bosses are the primary source of those debuffs.   A cascade failure will usually start with one of the bosses landing a hit, then cascade to death in often less than a few seconds.  Part of what you can learn is literally "listening".  There's a sound when that bad one hits, and a pattern to the sounds when you start failing.  There's also a sound in hard-mode when the hostless are going to spawn, even if you miss all the other warnings, if you HEAR that hostless sound, it means GTFO.  Once you can pass this test, soloing the ITF is just doing the same thing on a larger more comprehensive scale.

 

Recommended Armors( for 75% resist cap ATs):  Defense-Cap Based DDR Capable Armors.  I generally do not recommend resist armors for 75% resist cap ATs.   The heal armors are going to have similar issues to the resist armors, but they are also so much fun.  But Still, I would not recommend Regen.  WP is 50/50 and is probably the lowest rated armor I'd recommend.  I simply love BIO even if the defense armors typically fair better.   Bio is just so much fun.  So I do recommend WP and Bio, but most players will get more mileage out of the defense armors.

 

Yea having had more experience with titan/bio scrapper, I was using a build that is very heavy on damage (and it's really fun), but I only made it past stage 3 of a +4/x8 ITF. Had to run from romy constantly to get away from the debuffs, which is fine. (I tried stage 4 and nictus romy is just not happening, even in defensive adapt I take way too much damage too quickly to overcome the regen. Though I didn't know you could seperate stage 4 romy from the adds.. so I might try doing that next time) I don't mind learning movement and frankly it's alot more of a challenge to have to monitor debuffs and react accordingly, but my question is,  you've solo'd the ITF so much at higher difficulty levels, if I'm way more interested in soloing, what is the actual build looking like? I'm assuming you need to be way more tanky than I'm being. 

 

Like for /bio, you still want to be super tanky right. Do you have an example of a kat/bio scrapper that you've solo'd the whole ITF at +4/x8 on? Cause that's awesome. But I'm only asking for a build cause as much as I love just throwing out massive damage on my /bio characters, I'm assuming if I'm wanting to solo hard stuff I need to be referencing builds that are tankier, or are at least meant to do that.

 

Thanks for the post, that's great info. I am actually raising a kat/bio right now just because Ive been enjoying /bio the more I get used to it and it seems like one of the better picks for katana.