New player needs advice for build

[Neon_Ithalik]

Hi everyone !

Like I wrote in the title, i'm a new player. I played a little bit with one character to try the game and decide if I really want to play it.
And to be honest, i'm a little lost because of the totally new experience but I really like what I saw for now and I made my mind: I really enjoy the game for the little I've seen and played. 

 

So, for the main reason I'm writing this is, I want to make a serious character, one that I really think of, build it and have fun with. So I red a lot of guides here and made my mind. I'd like to make a Scrapper but not sure of the power I should use as a beginner. I red some wiki articles on power and played a bit with the mids' reborn tool to try making a build. But I'm too new to really know what is good or not. I selected some and maybe you guys could help me choose ?

 

Primary :

- Staff : I really like the idea of this, maybe my favorite one

- Stone : Like stone powers, remind me of Avatar: Last Airbender

- Radiation : The idea of being radioactive is fun too

 

Secondary :

- Super Reflexes : This with staff maybe ? The combo is cool in my head

- Regeneration : LOVE healing powers (even if its only self healing)

 

So what do you think ? I mainly play alone for now so I think I need something that can deal good damages and resist a bit too.

 

Thank you for your help.

Neon

 

[SomeGuy]

Staff is...performance wise the absolute worst for the melee sets. Looks amazing, but it is easily the worst. Like, no contest or debate on that one. From anyone. It's that bad. OMGWTF bad set. 

 

Stone Melee...this set f*cks. It feels chonky and performs really well. Outstanding set.

 

Rad Melee...if procs get nerfed the set is absolutely effed. In it's current state? Fun stuff. Very AOE centric and the big bad ST attack hits hard as get out and is absolutely beautiful with how it feels. Good set.

 

Super reflexes...really good set. It's a legacy set and has absolutely stood the test of time and still stands out as one of the really good ones. Great set. 

 

Regen...a legacy set that did NOT age well. It recently got some love, but it's still pretty...abysmal. Regen is bad. You have to do some crazy footwork to make this set decent at the expense of, you know, actually killing stuff. People will debate this set isn't bad. People that do this are also wrong. No. This set is a no.

[Neon_Ithalik]

Thanks for your answer 🙂

 

So the staff idea should wait for now I guess. Using your advice, Stone Melee and Super Reflexes could be a good combo for me ?
I also saw the Street Justice one but I fear it's a bit complicated with the combo builders and finishers

[SomeGuy]

Street Justice is very far from complicated. Don't let the combo system scare you off if you like the concept. TW is way more complicated and it doesn't have a combo system, for example. That isn't to say TW isn't an amazing set, just referencing that for example. 

 

I have no clue what's a overall good combo for you, playstyle wise. I just know Staff and Regen really suck performance wise. And Regen is a VERY clicky set for how little you get out of it.I mean...Staff/Regen could be a good pairing. You'll be clicking on everything in Regen you won't have any opportunities to attack with Staff and see how bad it's damage is.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I don't share @SomeGuy's distaste for staff; in fact I think it's a great set.  Guarded Spin adds a ton to your survivability, but doesn't help much if you decide to go with super reflexes.

 

I've got a brute Staff/Regeneration from long before the remix of the regen set, and I haven't rebuilt it since, but it was extremely survivable and fun even with Regen 1.0.

[aethereal]

5 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

Staff is...performance wise the absolute worst for the melee sets. Looks amazing, but it is easily the worst. Like, no contest or debate on that one. From anyone. It's that bad. OMGWTF bad set. 

 

I think that lots of people would argue that Kinetic Melee is the worst melee set on Scrappers.

 

Staff isn't great.

 

But OP, this is a pretty easy game, and your first character is very unlikely to end up with the dubious honors of setting performance standards for this old, mostly-dead, easy game.  I wouldn't sweat it.  Play what seems fun to you.

[SomeGuy]

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I don't share @SomeGuy's distaste for staff; in fact I think it's a great set.  Guarded Spin adds a ton to your survivability, but doesn't help much if you decide to go with super reflexes.

 

I've got a brute Staff/Regeneration from long before the remix of the regen set, and I haven't rebuilt it since, but it was extremely survivable and fun even with Regen 1.0.

 

 

I put in a LOT of effort and time to make Staff work cause I *REALLY* like the way the set looks. I still think it's one of the coolest looking sets in the game. It just performs so abysmally bad. Yes, even compared to Kinetic Melee. Yes, you can make that set (KM) work better then Staff, but it will take a lot of work to get there. Basically, I was just trying to get them to "good enough". I can't even do that with Staff. For comparison, I know Dark Melee is a really bad performer but that set is FUN and does "good enough". It's legit one of my fav melee sets despite it's setbacks. I was actually driving a DM/BIO on Brainstorm earlier for poops and giggles. 

 

And that applies to Regen. My first 50 was a Claws/Regen I made back in issue *2* (this is back in 2004...yes, I'm old). I put in some serious time and effort to make that set just OK. I had to do some wild crap just to get it on par with other mediocre sets. 

 

Yes, I definitely have disdain towards the two, but it isn't because I didn't put in a lot of effort to get them good. I WANTED them to work. Alas...

 

Also, @aethereal, is spot on...this game is NOT hard. It doesn't matter if you pick the best FOTM combo or the worst...just play and enjoy. I'm just sharing what I know as fact and also my opinions.

Edited Thursday at 11:57 PM by SomeGuy

[Neon_Ithalik]

Thank you all ^^

I understand a bit more the game. I'm used to play games with system difficulties where it's hard to go back from a decision but here I understand that I can do whatever I think is fun. So I guess i'm gonna try one build right now to do the story and then I'll do alts with my other build ideas 😄

 

It's great for once to not be overwhelmed by a game size, difficulty and systems.

[SomeGuy]

Boo yahh. There's a reason why there are so many character slots. Altitis is a thing. I haven't been able to "main" a character in this game for well over a decade. 

[WuTang]

I don't know.... Regen is pretty good now. True it is not a "set it and forget it" secondary, and you can't just go AFK and come back to a standing hero, but it holds its own now. I've got a SS/Regen Brute that is amazing and a friend rolled a Spines/Regen Scrapper that absolutely wrecks +4 solo. Actually a lil jealous of his build lol.

 

My take on Super Reflexes is mixed. Overall I think it's great but you will have to build in some healing somewhere, be it through procs or choosing a primary with a built-in heal. I prefer resist sets or healing sets. Radiation Armor is a personal fav with Electric a very very close second.

 

@Neon_Ithalik if you like healing secondaries look into Bio, it's amazing...maybe a lil too OP, but hey so are Fire Blasters... Bio Armor is a jack-of-all-trade AND master of them all. It has two absorb shields, defenses, decent S/L resists, three adaptive armor choices (offense, defense, efficient), and a damage/debuff aura. Lot going for it....down side, you will have to like the adaptive armor effect, it cannot be turned off. 

 

Offenses, choose what you think is cool, because they all work, but if you don't think it's cool you probably won't play it.

 

Most of all have fun! AND Welcome!!

 

-WT

[Triumphant]

Play whatever seems interesting and come back and ask for advice if you feel frustrated at any point.  This game is a ton of fun and many of us have played obsessively for years.  Once you figure out the mechanics your biggest problem will be deciding which powersets and ATs to try NEXT.  Because you're going to have so many ideas for cool characters and there are a mind-boggling number of combinations you can try.

Have fun and welcome to our weird little family of comic book gaming nerds! 🤓

[UltraAlt]

On 9/4/2025 at 12:25 PM, Neon_Ithalik said:

So what do you think ? I mainly play alone for now so I think I need something that can deal good damages and resist a bit too.

 

I'm a character conception player, I would suggest thinking up an idea for a character and building the character based on the character conception.

I would also suggest playing the game and not getting power leveled to 50.

 

If you are making a scrapper, the primaries I would stay away from for a new player would be dual blades (due to the combo system) and kinetic (as it seems to be a bit difficult to get the most out of it and the animations are slow).

 

Super reflexes and regeneration are both good sets.

The first scrapper I ever made is regen, and I like the set.

I tend to use super reflexes for dual blades, katana, and martial arts scrappers. That being said, super reflexes is defense based and not resistance based.

I would go with invulnerability if you want the character to be resistance based.

 

Regardless of which set you chose, I would highly suggest getting the anti-mez power as soon as possible. Generally, 2 recharge reducers are enough to make them aways recharge before the affect expires. I also put these on autofire. You want to kind  of keep an eye on when they are going to recharge so that you stop attacking for a moment so that the auto-fire has a chance to go off before attacking again.