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Early on attacks do enough damage to get by. However defense is rather low still. Because of this I slot defense in focused fighting and focused senses first. By level five I have my toggle defenses three slotted. While Training enhancements let me slot more before hitting the cap, I hold back because any extra slots beyond the first three I put in now are wasted at level 22. While I dont know the exact value when slotted, its a significant chunk of defense with SO enhancements. The first two toggles get slotted with three defense for now.
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In the very early levels you will run into endurance problems a lot if you try to run both toggles. I recommend taking Agile before FS since it does not cost End and the ranged shots at low levels is a lot less.
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Swipe, Strike, and Slash will be my mainstay attacks throughout the characters life so I begin slotting those next. These I take my time with, making sure I keep them even. Once more I stop adding slots once I have slots for my eventual SO enhancements.
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I too add slots without planning for a respec. Generally 1 Acc and 3 Damage to all attacks that I use regularly. I skipped Swipe. Spin does more damage although the End cost is quite high. I think the claws set would be perfect if Spin was put later like the area attack in the Katana set.
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At level six I get my entrance power for the fitness pool. I chose Swift because it combines well with my secondary. Swift, Quickness, and Sprint will combine to give me near super speed running speeds. Its not a true travel power, but serves nicely. Slotting swift can wait however.
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Yes. If you know your way and don't putz around, you will find yourself getting to mishes faster than ppl with travel powers. The largest obstacle is vertical movement.
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At level ten Practiced Brawler unlocks. This is a click mez protection power. With two SO enhancements its perma so I make sure I get a second slot in it ASAP.
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I generally don't bother with the second slot right away. The only enemies you really need it for are the Lost until you get into your 20's. If you can hold off on doing your FrostFire mish until you get this, you will see how lame he really is.
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With level twelve I pick up the first of three auto powers from Super Reflexes. It was available sooner, but it was more important to build an effective attack chain first. So far the defense isnt critical. As with all other +defense powers from the secondary, this will be slotted three defense.
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Again, I would take Agile earlier and wait on FS till lev 8 or 12. My Claws/SR is almost level 33 and still only has 1 slot in Agile, but will get a couple more at 34.
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At level fourteen I get health. This power is easy to overlook. By its self it isnt going to save you in a tough situation. The regeneration boost does combine well with SRs +def powers however. It also reduces down time between fights. It will eventually be slotted with three heals, but that can wait until I have spare slots.
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Easy to overlook? No way! It really makes a huge difference. If you get hit a couple times by a boss you can back out of melee range and with Agile scaled up due to your low health, you can get a tick or two of health to try and finish him off (esp when you get Focus and can kill from range).
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Level sixteen gives the second of three passive defense powers, this time for melee attacks. Very handy. Even if the +def isnt attractive, the scaling resistance these powers give is.
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I held off on Dodge until level 30 on my claws (my Claws is named Serrated Angel, so I took Hover/Fly in my 20's for concept reasons). I noticed the lack of Dodge compared to my Katana scrapper who took it much earlier, but the difference wasn't really bad till level 28 or so.
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Level eighteen brings us to Focus. This is one of the hardest hitting powers in Claws. Its also ranged and fast animating. Have a runner? Focus can knock them off their feet. Its also part of a two power boss juggling tactic. Because focus does knockdown theres less worry about your target going flying backwards.
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This is an awesome power and the main damage dealer of the set. I have it slotted 1Acc, 3Dam, 1Rech, 1EndRed. I normally kick off this power as I run in and generally get a knowdown. Then Follow-Up and Evicerate and by then Focus is back up and they are just getting to their feet.
It should be noted that Focus does have knockback on mobs lower level than you.
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I take Quickness at level 20 because by now Im feeling the crunch of no travel power. Its main contribution to the build is +speed. It also gives a DOs worth of recharge reduction and enough slow resistance to ignore one slow field. The slow resistance isnt too important yet. Slotting will be three run speed, but that can wait.
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Even though I am really tired of running slow, I generally hold off on Quickness until 22. Quickness has a recharge reduction on it and by this time I am already hurting for End and I don't want to spend half my time at 20 and 21 resting. I find having to rest or worse yet, wait for rest to recharge much more annoying than running slow to mishes.
I don't slot this. I think slotting Sprint may be the better way to go for run speed. Also, you really don't want to be *that* fast all the time. Grouping with a Kinetic defender who insists on keeping everyone perma-speed gets kinda dangerous, esp in those annoying CoT cave mishes.
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Follow-Up is a nice attack/buff. Unlike Aim or Buildup, this gem can be perma out of the box.I waited until level twenty-two however because its not a must have power. While nice, the buff isnt required. It does the same damage as Swipe when slotted for damage, so not completely worthless damage wise. This one I slot 1 acc, 3 damage, and 2 to-hit buffs.
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IMO, Follow-up should be taken much sooner (and you can if you skip Swipe!). This is like carrying a trunk of red and yellow inspirations around with you. I slot 2Acc and 1Dam at the moment. I will prob add to-hit when I can. If you are facing +2 and +3 (or greater) enemies, landing this will add Acc to the rest of your chain, hence the 2Acc.
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Stamina I pick up at level 24 because by now during extended fights end can at times be a problem. Focus is one of the three major end hogs in the claws set. Slots however can be added when available. Im still slotting more important things like attacks and defenses.
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I take this at 20 and start slotting at 21. I hate resting.
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Evic, well this powers ok. If taken it demands slots. You can live without it however. This is the strongest attack in the set and has the highest crit chance. Its also got the longest animation and a high end cost.
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I hate the animation time on this one. The cone takes a bit of getting used to and generally I just plan on hitting 1 and if I get more, yay! It also seems to have -Acc compared to the rest of my powers for some reason. I will prob put 2Acc on it.
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I waited until level 30 to get spin because its a high end cost PBAoE. Before now it wasnt needed, but now I can look forward to many Arch Villain fights. Since AVs usually have many minions around them, spin can be thrown into an attack chain to help clear out minions without turning from the AV. This brings us to...
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Since I skipped Swipe, I used Spin a lot early on and much less so now. There is one thing it is really, really good to have for though. You know when the mins get stuck in a wall and none of your targetted attacks work because apparently you can't see them? Usually Spin will hit them.
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Shockwave. Truly a nice power. Unlike Focus. this is knock-back. Its also a ranged cone attack. This when slotted does about the same damage as Strike to everything within a wide cone.
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Yes, I am lev 32 now, so I just got this. The cone is so much nicer than Evicerate. I find it handy if one of my teammates is in trouble, I just turn around and blow the enemies around them away and then go back to taking down the boss or lieu that is just getting up after my Focus laid them flat.
This is as far as I can really comment. My Katana/SR is level 30. Since I didn't take Hover/Fly like I did on my Claws, I took Stealth in my early 20's and I took Hurdle at 30 (the lack of vertical was really annoying and it keeps with his Natural Origin)
