Rad_Avenger

Running the chain:

Follow Up
Focus
Slash

Assuming you are very tight with your clicks, and with no lag, achieves triple stacking on Focus & Slash and double stacking on Follow Up.

Assuming 95% enhancement for damage (and the ridiculous 313% recharge you need in Follow Up ...), this nets us a comparison that has the Scrapper and Brute dead even at 68% Fury. The Scrapper can pull ahead with +DAM in the build and Assault, while the Brute pulls ahead by squeezing out more Fury. 68% is not unusual, IMO, but does take some effort to keep up.

That's the absolute best chain available. But in the land of reality, we're not running FU/Focus/Slash, right? Because holy heck that's a lot of recharge. Of course, if you're running a toon with a damage aura, as a Scrapper you can leverage the triple stack better. So it might be worth a bit of an investment.

At lower levels, FU/Focus/Slash/Strike is a lot easier to achieve and grants double stacking of FU. Brute and Scrapper are dead even at 57% Fury, which frankly I can do in my sleep.

So ... I guess my conclusion is ... at the highest levels of recharge, a Claws Scrapper should be able to pull ahead in an average situation, but a high-Fury Brute can pound 'em a bit. But at realistic level of recharge, at 70% fury, the Brute has about a 7% damage advantage.

Some general comments:

- All Blaster 1/2 attacks were standardized at 1 / 1.67 second activation times. This did a number of Ice's single target damage vs. its original state.

- All 20' attacks (i.e., Blaze!) were increased in range to 40', which cut into Ice's advantage with Bitter Ice Blast at 50'.

- So ... while Ice was the king historically, maybe not as much today.

- Bonesmasher still rocks the house ... Total Focus now no longer does a boss level stun, so that was a hit, unfortunately (but I think your guide didn't recommend Total Focus anyway).

- Hovering (you used to recommend 6 slotting) took a hit with Enhancement Diversification, but is now a bit better thanks to swift impacting Hover now.

Hmmmm, those are the key things I think were pertinent to your guide, which was awesome at the time

Three points:

- You need to factor in the bonus 15% chance to crit that the Scrapper has on Eviscerate.

- You would never completely factor out crits on the Scrapper as the AT has a modest ability to crit minions as well at 5%. Its disingenuous to look at a chain without crits entirely.

- Furthermore, regardless of minion/LT/Boss, the odds highly favor crits occurring in an AoE chain, particularly on Eviscerate. That attack will crit on at least one target, every time, at the target cap. If you're going to be a stickler, you'd apply a flat 7.5% chance to crit on all powers, 22.5% on Eviscerate.

- For what its worth, I also would not include Shockwave in an AoE chain comparison. From a practical perspective, its not happening without repositioning. I say this as someone that has played with Shockwave and loves the power.

The appropriate chain comparison math, in my opinion, for the Scrapper would be: Follow Up + Spin + Eviscerate (Repeat). The AoEs maximize 2x stacked follow up and leverage the Scrappers bonus on Eviscerate.

For the Brute, I suspect they'd be better off with an AoE chain leveragin a Patron power like Elec. Fences rather than Eviscerate, but that's just my gut. I have Evis on my Brute, and I think I'd prefer a higher target cap personally. I dunno.

Anyway that's how I'd compare 'em. Just my $0.02 and I have no dog or pony in this pissing match.

(And in case anyone cares, I have a Claws/Elec Brute, fully IO'd / Incarnated and yes, it is a tiny God. I also have a Claws/Fire Scrapper and its very nice as well. YMMV!)

I hope Life Drain doesn't suck too bad for damage.

I really like the idea of /MM for the triple cones of doom: Tentacle/Torrent/Scream just sounds fun

Kyria - Thanks for stating clearly what I've been thinking for a while but haven't been able to well articulate.

The Devs have actually done a nice job (unintentionally or otherwise) of making range desirable in the trials. Blasters own the BAF. Of course, I think I'd prefer to avoid a Blaster in a certain phase of the Lambda ... heh

More excited about the revamps to /Poison and /Energy Aura than anything else. Those have been coming since freakin' Q4 2005.

I re-rolled my level 44 SS/EA as an SS/SR. I 50'd and IO'd the SS/SR and was generally happy with the move, but I'm looking at this at thinking the SS/EA would be pretty nice with these changes.

Good call on the Lightning Field slotting, I overlooked that.

Very good call on the Enzymes, was going to suggest them, but as they cost similar amounts to Purples, I figured you'd say no. Quick tip: The synthetic HOs are generally cheaper than the pure HOs, no good reason why.

Overall I think you'll be happy with your build! Its not quite as sturdy as some of the defense-oriented powersets, but it gets the job done and builds out really well under incarnates.

I splurged on PvP +Res IO and went Tier 4 Cardiac for nearly (not quite) 70% S/L res which is very nice indeed. I took the Destiny buff for defense debuff resistance which is also very nice, REALLY helps against those annoying Psi enemies that blast def debuffs right through me. (I'm looking at you, Tarantula Mistress!)