The Passive Aggressor Part Deux: The Scrappering

[Yomo Kimyata]

You know, I hear you all.  "Happy Thanksgiving, Yomo!  How are you?  What's going on with the Passive Aggressor?"

 

 

Well, it's really nice to hear from you and I am thankful for almost each and every one of you!  The Passive Aggressor?  Well, recently I've had a little bit of time to realize that hey, I could make a scrapper now thanks to the softening of rules which allow for damage auras at level 1.  And so it goes.

 

I started the Passive Aggressor on Excelsior as a Spines/Dark Armor scrapper.  As a gentle reminder, the point of this character is to never use an offensive power that causes damage, and to organically level from 1-50 (and BEYOND!) at regular xp without ever lifting my fists in anger.  This time around I went with Spines rather than Radiation Melee since they fixed the overpoweredness of Irradiated Ground.  I just dinged 10 as a Praetorian and will give periodic updates as I see fit.

 

So far, at level 10, my power selection has been Barb Swipe, Death Shroud, Dark Embrace, Injection, Build Up, Combat Jumping, Obsidian Shield.  I am looking forward to leaning into proc usage.

 

Enjoy your day!

[Spaghetti Betty]

I'm glad to see silly builds making a return!

 

Since you yourself aren't allowed to make an attack, will you be taking an epic pet to add DPS?

[Yomo Kimyata]

17 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Since you yourself aren't allowed to make an attack, will you be taking an epic pet to add DPS?

 

Unlikely, that seems overly aggressive.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Next update:  I decided I needed to burn a respec in order to get more active actions on line.  Specifically, I pushed off some of my defensive choices and front loaded the Presence Pool.  Everything is going to be hunky dorey once I hit 18 and get Quills, but at 14 I've changed my power order to:  Barb Swipe (slotted with Scrappers Strike proc); Death Shroud (currently with 1x Acc, 3x dam SOs, Eradication proc, and Glad Strike proc); Dark Embrace; Injection (acc SO, cloud senses proc, impeded swiftness proc); Build Up; Combat Jumping; Provoke; Obsidian Shield; Intimidate.  I'll hit 18 later today and hoo boy!

[Yomo Kimyata]

I'm finding this significantly easier now that this type of project is no longer my first rodeo, and some of that is the difference between tankers and scrappers.  Thanks for Yomosplaining, Captain Obvious!

 

The balance has been to stay alive for long enough for your passive damage to take down your enemies, and even with all the crazy buffs tanks have received in HC, the additional damage from scrappers is meaningful.  But what is interesting to me is that getting additional proc damage is not nearly as important as getting mitigation in the form of knock* and other mez, and that really fits in well with my scrapper playstyle.

 

At 20, I left Praetoria and went redside -- tougher enemies but easier (eventual) path for various accolades since I'm not going to be able to take down AVs with a double damage aura alone.  Currently running at 26.  The Medicine and Presence pools are key to hanging in there, and I continue to eschew things like armor until I'll have slots to put to work.  That goes for Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom as well, although those will both be game changers in the near future.