Reyne_Maker

My current build, seems to chain Hack-HS-Hack-Disembowel pretty seamlessly, (The numbers guys say it shouldn't, but there's no way I'm complaining, with this in mind though, you would be advised to swap Assault for Hasten)

The main thing to note though is it is expensive. Very expensive, it also falls just short of the softcap for ranged (6slot Disembowel with Makos and shes over though)
Overall though, she is a fury on the battlefield, can solo large chunks of the ITF, can solo AVs (but does need a few blues occasionally, and lacks aid self) and has recently seen some good successes in PvP.

Anyway, the build -->
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Valk_v2: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Broad Sword
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Hack -- (A)(3)(3)(5)(5)(7)
Level 1: Deflection -- (A)(11)(11)(13)(13)(17)
Level 2: Battle Agility -- (A)(7)(9)(9)
Level 4: Slice -- (A)(23)(23)(25)(25)(27)
Level 6: Build Up -- (A)(27)(29)(29)(31)(31)
Level 8: True Grit -- (A)(48)(50)
Level 10: Parry -- (A)(31)(34)(37)(39)(39)
Level 12: Swift -- (A)
Level 14: Hover -- (A)(15)(15)(17)
Level 16: Active Defense -- (A)
Level 18: Health -- (A)(19)(19)(21)(21)
Level 20: Stamina -- (A)(39)(40)(40)
Level 22: Whirling Sword -- (A)(40)(42)(42)(42)(43)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- (A)
Level 26: Fly -- (A)(43)(43)
Level 28: Disembowel -- (A)(45)(45)(45)(46)(46)
Level 30: Kick -- (A)
Level 32: Head Splitter -- (A)(33)(33)(33)(34)(34)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- (A)(36)(36)(36)(37)(37)
Level 38: Against All Odds -- (A)
Level 41: Tough -- (A)(46)(48)
Level 44: Weave -- (A)(48)(50)
Level 47: Assault -- (A)
Level 49: Conserve Power -- (A)(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- (A)
Level 1: Sprint -- (A)
Level 2: Rest -- (A)
Level 1: Critical Hit

Most of my Toons use hover.
It has a nice def bonus, takes Blessing of the Zephyrs, and with swift and some IOs, is quicker than sprint.
so yeah, very viable, very useful.

But more importantly than that, it looks pretty, real pretty.

I've got both a lvl 50 BS/Regen and a lvl 50 BS/Shield.
Both are very Awesome.

It's worth saying that BS/Shield is Awesome. Great Synergy. Phenomenal damage Output. And one of the best Attacks in the game - Shield Charge!
Also hella expensive to IO slot, though, so if price is a factor . . .

But if i had to choose between WP & Regen, well I've
got a big soft spot for BS/Regen,
So Vote 1 - Regen

(unless you have the Inf for shields)

Three simple IOs Every Scrapper should have,
- The Steadfast Def Unique
- The Kismet Acc unique
- The Performance Shifter unique

Thats all you should need for the majority of the game, and you'll get change from 20mil

After that though, IOs become a strange, murky and expensive landscape, my single piece of advice is get the Field CrafterAccolade. You'll learn everything you need to know about the market doing this, (salvage prices, how to turn inf into more inf, etc) because an high end IO build isn't cheap, and you'll need a way to pay for it

Um, turn off FA, its a hideous, hideous power.

And you're still doing yourself a disservice with that Soul Drain Slotting, (needs more Rech & acc, personally I used a full set of Obliterations, which has nice bonuses to boot )

your def/res numbers are a little low, the single best thing you could do to raise them is pick up Tough & Weave, which you could make room for by dropping LBE, SJ and Unstoppable.
It'd put you at around 30% def and 70% res to Smash lethal, more with IO bonuses, which is comparable to an IO only Granite.
Just my two inf,

[ QUOTE ]
every time a Dark Melee scrapper, tanker, or brute skips Soul Drain, a catgirl is born.

[/ QUOTE ]

I love it,

PS, yeah, Soul Drain is an absolute must have, it has very little downtime, and is the only real Aoe you get as a DM (Mau is a cone, and barely counts anyway, and DC is up even less often, for less damage)

PPS, I actually do think the world could use MORE Catgirls, but only the kind that never talks, but that might be testosterone talking.

I've been using my Spines/Dark for occasional wall farming in Cimerora.

It's a cheap, incomplete build, so I won't post it, but will say that Endurance is a huge issue, and you're unlikely to avoid that. Even after including the numina, miracle & PS uniques along with Conserve power, he has problems with blue, but nothing that cant really be overcome by the occasional pause or a few insps.

To be honest, I do think it's survivability is lacking, but I'm not sure if it's the set itself, my power picks, the absence of IOs or a combination thereof.
I've previously said I hate OG and CoF, and had dropped them in order to fit Tough/Weave in, which has bumped the survivability considerably, but after having listened to the many CoF, OG lovers out there, I'm seriously considering speccing it back in.
When all is said and done though, DAs main survivability comes from Dark Regeneration, and the skill is all in knowing exactly when and where to use it. Especially as it's mitigation numbers are nowhere near as nice as many of the other sets.

If you are putting money into slotting though, use the ragnarok Chance for knock down in throw spines, and the apocalypse chance for fire in spine burst. The first for added survivability, the second because Spine burst is your main attack anyway. You'll also want to keep it recharging as much as possible.
Following that, if you can draw enough Acc/end red from elsewhere in the build, Quills and Death Shroud work well with 3 damages and the 3 'chance for damages'.
Flavour with Build-up to taste, and anything minion class should drop without getting a shot of anyway.
And at the end of the day you're a Scrapper, and isn't the best defense a good offense?

So I just finished something similar, on of my toons needs the Task Force accolade, so I got a filler, and used my BS/Shield to do all the heavy lifting.

It's at this point I want to say that I hate Positron, and everything he stands for.

but, Slash, Parry, Slice and Build-up (along with Sands and the Staff) were MORE than enough to see me through.

What I found myself slipping into was use the Staff to pull, then get them nicely gathered round a corner, Build-up, Slice, they all fall down. Easy!

Though if I HAD to do it again, I'd also stock up on a few extra Shivans (didn't have any when starting), and carry more Breakfrees, (didnt have mez protection, and almost every boss packed a mez power, bah, humbug!)
She also burned a lifetimes supply of inspirations over the course of it, mainly due to the Abominations awful spew power (toxic DoT with -res)
but for the most part, spamming Parry will keep you softcapped for melee (the other reason for pulling them to corners, ie, dont let them use ranged) and survivability is pretty easy.

And the final part, travel? There wasn't a lot of travel needed really. Though I do have the mish transporter and the pocket D pass, both of which got used during the course of it. And the temp Jetpack did the rest.

so yeah, the Verdict, -
Positron is very easy,
(Just mind numbingly dull, and akin to having teeth pulled, grab a shivan and be sure to make generous use of your Insps if you must do it.)

As for Synapse, I'm thinking of trying that on Monday (followed closely by Sister Psy) and will hopefully have a wider range of powers for them (mez protect, & Whirling Sword) and with a smaller team the final AVs should spawn as EBs and be quite manageable (especially with a pocket Shivan)

So yeah, late night ramblings I know, but I hope they help and give you the info you need

Shields isn't a cheap set, but there are ways around it, The Gaussians are good, and reasonably priced currently, the Blessing of The Zephyrs however? Well you may want to do without them (And I'm guessing you'll use merits to get the LotG recharges?) following the BotZs the next most expensive set you have there is likely the Obliterations, but overall you're looking at under 500mil for what you have.
Oh, if you can find the slots, Red Fortunes can be a good choice for the Defense sets, they give a recharge bonus and are currently VERY cheap (look for them crafted)

and yeah, Endurance issues will plague you. Sort of.
But with the 3 End uniques (miracle, numina & performance shifter) it's not as bad as you may think, and just running from one for to the next in normal play is often enough to have the blue bar stay steady,
(and most higher level teams have some kind of extra End Recovery support from the trollers/fenders anyway)

An What you have for accuracy (the kismet unique and +27%acc) is again about what you need for most playing. I found I stopped seeing misses with at +27% Acc, at all. The kismet is icing.
So yeah, you're right you're being too picky.

What you have is nice, very nice, and will see you through most teaming/solo situations.

All that said, You wouldn't want to solo an AV without having a pocket Shivan. So if that (or similar levels of crazy) are your end goal, then you're going to need to learn to play the market to raise Influence.

And one last thing while I think about 'playing the market' don't bother with the forum guides for hints, for the simple reason, if they're posted as hints, everyone knows about them, and therefore its all out of date.
Earlier I mentioned getting dirt-cheap Red Fortunes, well, the market guides often cite that as a good one to make money on, and clearly it's been exploited to death, most of the current good niches are in flipping salvage (buy low, sell high) but for how long . . .

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
More importantly, it's range is around what a Blasters snipe is (and much better than anything Ice/ has), which opens a world of possibilities for pulling foes (ie on ITFs, or even STFs)

[/ QUOTE ]

LBE has a range of 80 feet according to City of Data. The first two attacks in Ice have a range of 80 feet (although the rest of Ice does seem to have more shorter-ranged attacks than most Blaster sets). Most Snipes have a range of 150 feet. LBE's range is better than the 40 foot range on Focus or Hurl, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have there been changes?

A while back, I was on an ITF, with an Ice Blaster, and I'm enjoying the wonders of LBE, using it to aggro left and right, so that our AoE heavy team was never short of Targets, and basically flabbergasted by its range. So i open up the in game info and check its range, (which I'm sure I remember being three digits, but . . . ) So I ask the (very expensive) Ice Blaster on the team how the range of LBE compared, only to find it was longer than anything he was packing.

Now honestly, I don't remember the exact numbers on the range, or how it was slotted (though I think it was Decimations for their Recharge) as the scrapper in question has since respecced it out, but am still pretty sure it was over 100ft.
What I do remember clearly, is the shock that mine was the superior range, and therefore being the one asked to pull Rommy and Requiem, and doing it very cleanly.
(And therefore doing exactly the same on every subsequent ITF, and most of them being, very, very clean pulls)

So yeah, I may be wrong on the numbers, but for sheer versatility on what is generally a Melee style AT, it Rawks!

Along similar line of "solving" this issue, it's probably been covered but how was the Scrappers chance to Crit taken into account? As it's higher for Bosses than it is for minions.
So, on that note isn't the easy fix to just make it slightly higher still?

In light of "Going Rogue" it makes a certain sense to let Brutes keep their all-round damage and extra survivability, while helping scrapper specialise a little more, with a slightly bigger edge for Boss killing.

Just my Two inf,

(And then maybe a Difficulty level 6 so that it REALLY pays off, but thats more wishful thinking)

Oh, something I should have mentioned in the earlier post,

The attack Chain you'll be aiming for is Smite - SL -Smite - MG.
(with Soul Drain thrown in where possible)

You won't have enough Recharge for it early on though, that's why you want Shadow Punch, to fill the gap.
It's also why Shadow Punch becomes skippable later in the build.

And yes, Shields is Expensive, very much so, learn to play the market, my best advice for that is pick one character and use them to get the "Field Crafter" Accolade, you should learn everything you need to know about the market and crafting while trying to get the accolade.
(ie don't grind it, but work at it sensibly)

I'm a HUGE fan of LBE,

but a few people have already mentioned that it doesn't belong in your attack chain. They're right.

It is however very useful for catching that minion who ran away while you slew everything else, or even on a Hami raid for helping with the blue mitos.

A little bit of ranged potential is good.

More importantly, it's range is around what a Blasters snipe is (and much better than anything Ice/ has), which opens a world of possibilities for pulling foes (ie on ITFs, or even STFs)
And heck, there are bragging rights associated with being able to do nice, clean pulls better than the blaster.

And it looks cool, very cool.,

Where I can, I always include it on my scrappers, but it's a 'nice' power, not a must have.

Assault could be a better option, but only as it doesn't need extra slots, but if you have spare slots, go LBE

PS - FA sucks, you should be fine with the Kismet unique and the 30% +Acc you have, but I'd also suggest a few Kinetic Combat IO sets, sure you're giving up a little recharge, but you could cap your Smash?lethal def that way.

your final build should look very different to your leveling build,
Shadow Punch is needed early on, Wheras Grant Cover is skippable,
you'll want some or all of Hover, CJ, Weave and Maneuvers on the way up, but will be able to be pickier with your final build.

Don't expect much in terms of survivability early on, so focus on Attacks first (Smite is AWESOME early on)
And make sure you balance Siphon Life between Healing and Damage, so you can skip Aid Self and still recover from those "lucky" hits.

Maeanwhile, for the finished builds have a look at some of the guides on here, there have been some very tasty builds posted.

And Good luck

I've got a Fire/SR I'm working on currentl.
The idea is for it to be VERY cheap, ie mostly SOs, but still capable of AV soloing.

It's currently in the mid 30s and it's clear that the one thing it will need is a way to overcome Endurance issues, everything else (Damage/Survivability) will be easy.
Even with the Perfomance Shifter proc currently, it's an End Hog.

See, For me, what makes AV soloing worth bragging about is the fact you've achieved enough Damage output, enough Survivability AND enough End Recovery.

Miss any one of those three and it's not possible. (without insps at least)

So coming full circle, I just don't think an SO build could pull off all three, but it could come close, very close.

Oh, and yeah, I actually would be impressed if they only used Brawl & TOs, but more in a "crazy back alley Freakshow kind" of way, and less a "it'd be a honor to team with them" kind of way

Dang,

Shadowhunter used it on me EVERY time he seemed to get between fall below 75% health (even got him down just below 50% only to see it bump up all the way)

That's when I said "Screw it, popped a Shivan, a bunch of Reds and invited a friend.

Now I'm 50 and almost completed a set oF Hecatombs, guess I'll have to try again via Oro


P.S. - Gratz on Infernal

It's about pushing the build out there, and getting as much potential from your Scrapper as you can.

The more temps/insps, the less bragging rights. So while I have no doubt that an MA/FA could do it, while only using brawl, a few TOs for powers, but a Truckload of temp/insps, it's not worth bragging about, and I wouldn't want to team alongside that build.

the "imaginary rules" aren't the point, it's about how strong and powerful your character can be.

And finding the kind of challenges that can push that and make it better

[ QUOTE ]
I think it's more common than you'd think. Most of my friends have soloed AVs ; most don't like doing it, either, so they do it once in a while and stop there.

[/ QUOTE ]

With No Temps/Insps???
Because honestly, this is the IntraWebz, Pics, or it didn't happen.

Like I said, I've got a few expensive Scrappers, but one needs to remember to have a few greens, another needs a few reds, and the third can do it alone.
(and we'll see how the other cope in a few levels time)
Meanwhile I also have a Controller that can Solo Giant Monsters, which honestly tends to be quicker and easier than soloing most AVs.
(GMs don't have self heals and ridiculous high damage)

The mix of high damage & high recharge, enough accuracy and end recovery? And the right attack chain? Along with a self heal for defense based sets?
Don't get me wrong, there are a vast number of very well built scrappers out there, but built for AV soloing? I doubt it.

(are they getting EBs confused with AVs perhaps?)

[ QUOTE ]
you cycle through attacks and kill things. Great fun at first, gets old.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you only had one button, the "Awesome" Button, why would you press any other button?

Honestly, with the exception of only a few Forumites, i don't think [u]anyone[u] does,

Which is what? Maybe a few dozen here at most.

I've currently got six lvl 50 scrappers, and another 12 in the 20-40 range. And of all those, only ONE is able to solo an AV, gauranteed, without using any Temps/Insps.
(and thats with 3 of those scrappers being billion Inf builds)

Why?

Well, AV soloing requires a very specific focus for the build. Often taking powers that are useless for general group play (I'm looking at you Aid Self) and foregoing things such as travel powers or more useful AoE powers.

Whereas most scrappers will be built for more general TFs, group play, Hami Raids etc. All of which has different requirements.

So yeah, AV soloing grants instant bragging rights, but the time commitment? the required Influence? and the very narrow focus of the builds?
Well, that's going to exclude the vast majority of players., from attempting it.

I'm curious Werner, the chain you used that includes the proc misses MG, but SL is the weakest of those three attacks, or it could even replace one of the Smites.
My guess it'd still be a little gimpy (depending on slotting) but might pull ahead a little more in a different chain.

You said it yourself, - Self Heals.

Might not sound like much, but in the early game You'll really notice the difference when you run into a large mob.

Of course, thats the early game, where Willpower still has low numbers, but in the later game Willpower pulls ahead.

Okay, on a serious note, I'm somewhere between borderline hate and just plain meh when it comes to CoF and OG.
And wheres my Knockback protection?

But Death shroud is the reason I took the set.
It also offer Great Survivability.
Straight out of the box, with no IOs, my experience was that this set was more survivable than any other secondary I have played other than /Inv.

Of course that could mean I just made mistakes with the other sets, (I never use mids to plan a build till mid 30s, it means I've at least tried the set 'raw') and IOs really do change the playing field considerably (Oh, theres my Knockback protection)

Seriously, listen to Des, she's knows of what shes speaks, Dark Rawks!

A- Theres no such thing as a bad scrapper secondary,
B- I love my spines/dark its awesome,

So with that said -

DARK SUCKS!!!!!

(you know I'm serious cos I used 5 exclamation marks)