(Active) Fire farm scrapper build?

[crimson72]

I heard these can work well with the right setup, would anyone care to share theirs?  

[Maelwys]

Active Farming builds can differ greatly depending upon the setup and map and just how active you're prepared to get.

 

For example: If you're combining all insps to reds, you'll want more survivability from the build than if you're popping purples (and/or oranges and/or greens) as they come.

Are you willing to permanently keep one or more base empowerment buffs up?

What about popping situational survivability boosts like Shadow Meld?

 

In any case, the ideal offensive powerset is going to be something with a few AoEs, at least one of which inflicts knockdown (for a Force Feedback proc) and normally the ideal defensive powerset is something with a few clicky damage boosters and/or AoEs, plus reasonable survivability (long recharge time clicks and T9s can work).

The general idea is keeping yourself at the damage cap (via insps) whilst chaining procbombed AoEs back to back and maybe clicking the occasional survivability button to stop yourself taking too much damage. However note that Epic pools can only get a Scrapper one decent procbombed AoE (unlike Mu Mastery Brutes which can get two!) so your choice of Primary powerset will matter a bit more.

 

Personally I'm rather fond of BattleAxe/RadArmor (even with the nerfs to RT and the currently bugged Ground Zero proc rate!). But lots of other stuff like MA/FA or even a TitanW/Bio can work. Heck, I've got an EnergyMelee/RA that until very recently could get through an asteroid map at a very decent rate.

 

Edited June 28 by Maelwys

[Story Archer]

My favorite character - Ladyshrike, a Claws/Bio Scrapper - is a deadly solo farmer even though that's not what she's designed for, strictly speaking. Bio-Armor benefits from having lots of mobs to target with its various abilities and the combination of fast-recharging Spin and Shockwave can be utilized (along with Genetic Contamination) to the point that you really don't need any additional AoE's. Follow-Up -> Spin -> (step back) -> Shockwave -> (step up) is a seamless attack chain that becomes second nature after a little while. I usually keep Pyronic Radial Final (Incarnate) as a reserve nuke to use in case I draw too many mobs at once - it's ultra-fast cast time makes it perfect in that regard.

 

Moving in and out of melee range while repeatedly knocking down mobs with Shockwave actually ends up being better damage mitigation than any armor set I've seen. I've also found that it is easy to overlook the level of protection that absorb shields give you until you've actually played with them, and a lot of people forget that Genetic Contamination comes with a hefty -11.25% damage debuff as well. Not only is that like a free 11% damage resistance, it applies even when you've reached the DR hard cap. If needed, dropping the occasional Shadow Meld (Soul Mastery EPP) or Barrier Core Epiphany (Incarnate) will help keep you up and running in even the toughest of farms.

 

Here's my current build, if you're interested - again not optimized for farming, but I've found that it doesn't need to be.

[Ladyshrike] alt.mbd

 

 

Edited July 2 by Story Archer

[Sancerre]

tankers or brutes are generally going to be better for a straight up farm.  brutes have a higher ceiling and are somewhat more reliant on inspiration lottery.  tankers are a lot more stable and simple but will generally clear slower (just a bit).  tankers are far better afk farmers, brutes being better active farmers... both can afk farm though.

 

anyways... the most common armor set for farming is fire and it does NOT have a taunt aura for scrappers... which is a big no-go for farms as scrapper.  bio armor is good... and likely where you should be looking for this toon... but bio armor is squishier than other armors and it is even more visibly squishy on scrapper.  i think the reality is that you will be wasting more active time trying to stay alive as opposed smashing faces into the floor.  as for primary damage, i would probably recommend one of the 3: battle axe, claws, ice melee.  battle axe is solid but might feel kinda clunky dealing with packs streaming in farm style.  claws honestly is probably your best bet across the board with tons of solid aoe, follow-up for -consistent- damage boost, ranged options, and tons of availability for FFB procs (and the knockdown everywhere also helps with durability).  ice melee is very good between (frost and frozen aura), exotic damage type, and has the ice patch for additional durability help but NO options for FFB procs outside of cross punch... which is fine but... eh.

 

i dont personally have a claw/bio scrapper build available but story archer's looks fine for general use -- you could probably be more aggressive with proc loadouts instead of set bonuses but overall it looks fine.  big changes that should be made towards FARM instead however -- pickup either fireball or ball lightning and proc bomb it.  ball lightning is easier to grab but does slightly less damage.  fire patron's melt armor can be useful anyways so its not really a 'wasted' power, just requires more investment to get there.  travel power is a waste unless you are using it as an IO mule (knockback or slow resist) -- your life exists inside the AE room, nowhere else.  leadership powers are going to be too taxing for solo farming -- dump them... or you can keep them and add vengeance purely as lotg recharge mules, but the stealth pool is better for that (you can get 3 def mule powers instead of 2 def mule powers)

 

**edit** thought i should bring up spines -- i just dont think you will get the same mileage on scrapper as you would on tanker/brute... but maybe im wrong here and someone can correct the record.

Edited July 5 by Sancerre

[Story Archer]

On 7/5/2025 at 2:47 PM, Sancerre said:

i dont personally have a claw/bio scrapper build available but story archer's looks fine for general use -- you could probably be more aggressive with proc loadouts instead of set bonuses but overall it looks fine.  big changes that should be made towards FARM instead however -- pickup either fireball or ball lightning and proc bomb it.  ball lightning is easier to grab but does slightly less damage.  fire patron's melt armor can be useful anyways so its not really a 'wasted' power, just requires more investment to get there.  travel power is a waste unless you are using it as an IO mule (knockback or slow resist) -- your life exists inside the AE room, nowhere else.  leadership powers are going to be too taxing for solo farming -- dump them... or you can keep them and add vengeance purely as lotg recharge mules, but the stealth pool is better for that (you can get 3 def mule powers instead of 2 def mule powers)

 

Just jumping in to relate the actual played experience of the build...

 

I routinely solo farm +4/x8 with this character, usually asteroids or city blocks depending on how much time I want to invest, and she plays anything but squishy. Now, proper building helps. No, I don't have the Patron Pool AoE's, but given how fast my two AoE's recharge and how hard they hit I don't really need them. How I use my tools depends on what I'm facing, but between Shadow Meld and the Barrier Core and Melee Core incarnates I have WAY more survivability than I need. Truth is, I often end up not even bothering with them because of the effective mitigation that Shockwave gives me. Shockwave (under 3 second recharge) and Spin (3.5 second recharge) combined with the damage aura are actually so effective that I usually end up only slamming Pyronic when I accidentally pull more mobs than I wanted to.

 

There's a lot of nuance in Bio-Armor that people tend to overlook - like the Damage DeBuff from Genetic Contamination that lets you run over the top of Resistance caps or just how far multiple Absorb Shields can carry you even without the Incarnates helping out. More to the point, Offensive Adaptation gives you a better damage bump and thus more defeat mitigation than just about anything else out there.

 

FWIW, the newest version of the build actually drops leadership and instead invests in the stealth pool, as you mention. It gave me an additional mule for a fifth LotG IO and freed up an additional IO slot to put Superior Avalanche's KD proc into Genetic Contamination - my foes spend more time on their backs than they do attacking me. Funny thing is I didn't even do it for farming purposes, it's just a nice side benefit.

 

 

Edited July 11 by Story Archer

[Sancerre]

crit ball lightning loaded up with procs is better than you give it credit for, but yes claws aoe is solid out of the box.  away from farms... general use for claws really doesnt need help with more aoe.

 

in any case, ive run 2 bio scrappers up to 50 with incarnates and they have both been less survivable in general content than my other scrappers (radiation, energy, nin, and shield defense).  i would say it felt better than electric armor (i know it just got buffed but man that armor set sucks for scrappers when i played it).  the benefit of farms though is that you dont need to be survivable for general content -- you need to be survivable against whatever you plan to farm... so no need to worry about longbows for example...... 

 

overall -- survivability can be tailored to in a farm but the main thing to note about these active defensive buttons is that every time you press shadow meld, you lose 3 seconds of active damage that a brute or tanker is probably never even going to need to consider -- they will just be pressing damage buttons the entire time.  the other end of that is farms are intended to be endless wave style so no waiting for cooldowns in between packs -- if you are relying on cooldowns or even inspirations to survive, bad luck streaks can send you to the hospital.

[Story Archer]

On 7/11/2025 at 4:51 PM, Sancerre said:

crit ball lightning loaded up with procs is better than you give it credit for, but yes claws aoe is solid out of the box.  away from farms... general use for claws really doesnt need help with more aoe.

 

in any case, ive run 2 bio scrappers up to 50 with incarnates and they have both been less survivable in general content than my other scrappers (radiation, energy, nin, and shield defense).  i would say it felt better than electric armor (i know it just got buffed but man that armor set sucks for scrappers when i played it).  the benefit of farms though is that you dont need to be survivable for general content -- you need to be survivable against whatever you plan to farm... so no need to worry about longbows for example...... 

 

overall -- survivability can be tailored to in a farm but the main thing to note about these active defensive buttons is that every time you press shadow meld, you lose 3 seconds of active damage that a brute or tanker is probably never even going to need to consider -- they will just be pressing damage buttons the entire time.  the other end of that is farms are intended to be endless wave style so no waiting for cooldowns in between packs -- if you are relying on cooldowns or even inspirations to survive, bad luck streaks can send you to the hospital.

 

I imagine different people/playstyles get different mileage from different builds. And I have to acknowledge that I'm speaking from the more specific experience of the two sets working in concert rather than a distillation of either. But let's not forget the mitigation you gain from simply killing quicker, and no armor let's you kill quicker than Bio.

 

Part of the issue with evaluating the defensive prowess of this build is that it has a lot of 'invisible' mitigation that don't show up in in raw Def/Res numbers. You've got all of the KB which dramatically reduces the rate of incoming attacks, you've got two substantial absorb shields, you've got the significant damage debuff from Genetic Contamination, etc... and, of course, all the death. As for Shadow Meld, it's activation time can be annoying, yes, but fortunately the animation doesn't root you, so I simply click it whenever I'm moving on to a new mob. The 2-3 seconds or so it takes to go from one to the other is 'dead time' anyway, and the power recharges so fast that its pretty much up every mob. As for inspirations, I've already got her limited to only accepting Accuracy and Damage, so they're definitely not what's keeping me alive.

 

FWIW, I love proc'ed out AoE's and damage procs in general - nobody makes uses of them like my Rad/SS Tanker - but I find that the set bonuses help address some of that survivability you may have found lacking. I've no doubt that Ball Lightning works wonderfully as you describe it (especially considering how hard proc'ed out Psionic Tornado rocks on my Tanker) but I just don't need it, as my attack chain works pretty much seamlessly with Follow-Up and the two AoE's I already have. 

 

I hear what you're saying about the benefits of a dedicated farmer vs. a character build that can do both, but remember that Scrappers have a more limited AoE target cap than Tankers, so there's a set rate at which you'll be able to farm regardless. Trying to squeeze out that last 1% Tanker-style often times means that you're simply taking more incoming fire, not necessarily killing things quicker. I admit that I'm not not the kind of guy who has multiple accounts and a bunch of heal or AoE bots following me around on auto-fire. I like to play and from time to time I like to farm. If I'm farming +4/x8 quickly and efficiently with a build meant for general content, I'd say that's a strength, not a weakness.

 

Edited 12 hours ago by Story Archer