Starflier

As a fan of the Presence pool, I can tell you that enemies do not run from the fear affects. They simply cower in place.

Also, unless you're willing to put a lot of slots into them, it's probably not worth the power selections. Without the slots the powers are kinda weak. Slotted up though they are quite effective.

While I don't have much experience with...any of those sets, I would say the Dark/Elec will do more damage, but the Claws/WP would be more survivable. To be fair though, there aren't 'bad' scrappers, just awesome and very slightly less awesome scrappers.

Claws/WP is likely to be straightforward 'entrails around your neck for a souvenir' type awesome. Simple, but stunningly effective.

Dark/Elec is likely to have a steeper learning, and likely take awhile to get the hang of all its tricks. But once you do you'll likely be standing back after a few fights saying to yourself, "Damn I'm awesome."

As far as IO's go, not a clue.

Your post confuses me. Invulnerability is a mix of resistance and defense, and with a little IO slotting can easily soft-cap with one mob in range. Defense is a large part of Invulnerability's mitigation, even with SO slotting.

As far as maximizing defense, check out CMA's guide to soft-capping Inv for tankers.

Very cool. I particularly like the arm reaching out of the car window. Great work.

I'll throw my vote in for DM/Inv. I run an Inv/DM tanker and it's a beast. The utility of SL and DC add so much to Inv, and even with a SO/generic IO build it's a tough SoB.

Battle Axe is a pretty decent set, with no crappy powers and a good secondary effect and respectable damage. Granite is the culprit here. -Recharge and -Damage and -Speed are going to make any secondary look bad. Try playing without Granite. I've seen a few guides for brutes that, using heavy IO set slotting, negate the penalties of Granite, but at a very hefty price tag.

Battle Axe is a pretty decent set, with no crappy powers and a good secondary effect and respectable damage. Granite is the culprit here. -Recharge and -Damage and -Speed are going to make any secondary look bad. Try playing without Granite. I've seen a few guides for brutes that, using heavy IO set slotting, negate the penalties of Granite, but at a very hefty price tag.

Nice

Superscout Scrappers brings up something entirely different to me. I once was tanking for a team in the Hollows and we had two scrappers. One of the scrappers had Invisibility, or Stealth, or somesuch, and would run through the mission to find the boss/glowie/objective and tell us all where it was, and then he/she would wait for the team to get there.

This guy didn't go all lonewolf scrapper, he didn't even fight when we finally got there, he just sat there invisible. His response: "I'm a scout."

Needless to say, I ditched that team since they seemed to appreciate his help.

Two birds with one stone: Combat Jumping slotted with a Karma -KB

I quite enjoy my Inv/DM tanker. I find the damage to be pretty good, but the big selling point of DM is the utility it provides. Sure I can lay a beating on my enemies with attacks, but siphon life makes my tanker godlike.

You could always go Shield/DM. That way you can still solo AV's and do crazy damage, while being able to tank when needed. My Inv/DM is my most scrapper-like tanker, while still being one of my tougher tankers.

Sheer madness? More like sheer awesome. I'm playing an Elec/DA scrapper, and I quite like the combo. I wasn't familiar with either combo when I started, but I really like both, and this has quickly become my favourite scrapper/hero by far.

Kinda squishy, but I am underslotted on my toggles and don't have Tough/Weave/CoD/OG yet. That said, he still remains standing for a good amount of time. Dark Regeneration is a massive lifesaver. Thunderstrike is another good piece of mitigation, being AoE, Knockdown, and Stun. Oppressive Gloom should add some nice mitigation, and should hopefully pick up some of the slack from not taking Tough.

Theft of Essence: Chance for +End is pretty much a necessary IO for Dark Regen in my opinion. In big spawns you will really notice the difference this makes as it nearly eliminates the end drain of Dark Regen. Explosive Strike: Chance for Smashing damage is a nice little proc, dirt cheap which is nice, and will slot in Thunder Strike for some nice extra damage. Knockback issues I took care of with a Steadfast -KB and it's working very well so far with just the 4pts. The Call of the Sandman: Chance for +Heal proc interested me, but after picking up three of them, I'm quite disappointed, and will likely replace them with Performance Shifter procs when I have the inf/merits.

Another issue for me so far is the lack of immobilize protection. Picking up either CoD or Combat Jumping would fix that, but still very annoying when I tried the Moonfire tf (which is now my pick for toughest, most unlikeable TF in the game).

End usage is an issue for sure. DA uses plenty of endurance, and the lack of ST attacks in Elec only serves to exacerbate the issue during fights against tough bosses. I IO'd my Elec/DA scrapper at 17 to get as many Recovery and Endurance bonuses as possible (early/cheap sets: Cleaving Blow(PBAoE), Brusising Blow, Pounding Slugfest (Melee), Impervious Skin (Resist), Triage (Healing), most of which will get you bonuses with just 2 pieces slotted). Came up with just less than unslotted Stamina which made a difference. Picked up and slotted Stamina at 24/25, although I'd recommend getting it earlier. I will suggest taking Taunt, if only because it costs no endurance and there will be times when that factors in during long, drawn-out battles. I haven't gotten any of the Performance Shifter: Chance for +End for Stamina or the two ST attacks yet, but I imagine they might make some difference.

AoE damage out the wazoo! I love AoE damage, and this build did not disappoint. Jacob's Ladder, Thunderstrike, Death Shroud, Chain Induction, and the vet power Sands of Mu, all early on turn you into an aggro hogging, death dealing machine. Unfortunately this also kills your endurance. Haven't gotten to Lightning Rod yet, as my static team seems to be stalling/dying, so I can't really say how that would work with scrapper's or a tanker's style.

Overall, the character is very fun and very active. Definitely not a 'set and forget' style of play like Inv/ or WP/ which is a nice change. I haven't seen enough high level DA tankers to really have an appreciation of what the set would handle like, but it seems like it would do alright in the hands of an experience player.

Good luck and have fun.

Edit: Here's Desmodos's DM/DA guide. Excellent material for DA. Should help quite a bit with understanding the set.

Second Edit: It's my personal opinion that this is one of those builds that is much better suited to teaming than soloing. Not that it can't solo, but with the AoE nature of both sets, specifically for damage dealing and healing, soloing can make you feel squishy and like you're wasting your potential.

Inv/Elec will be a good build. Good defense, good resistance, and excellent AoE damage potential. Single target damage output is kinda weak, so tough bosses/EB's could take some time and endurance to deal with.

1. No, it's not stupid. Inv is one of the strongest primaries, no matter what it's paired with.

2. You will be good at AoE damage, and be able to tank huge mobs. That's pretty much what Inv/Elec equates to.

3. Close fast and kick ***. Hesitation is not your friend, as you need to be mobbed by enemies to get your defense up, unless you're softcapped. Check a few of the more recent Inv guides to get an idea on power selections as Inv is pretty straight forward. You want Temporary Invulnerability, Dull Pain, Unyielding, and Invincibility as soon as possible. Tough Hide and Resist Physical Damage after that. Resist Energies and Resist Elements later on, if you can fit them in. For heavy tanking you'll want Tough/Weave of the fighting pool, as well as Health/Stamina from the fitness pool.

There are 3 columns of characters. You might just be on one of the other 2 columns you don't have slots/characters on. Should be arrows at the bottom to change back to the first column.

Very cool.

Once you start getting slots into the attacks that you want to use, SK, CAK, CK, DT, EC, the set actually gets to be respectable. Thunder Kick is, of course, complete garbage and something I don't even bother with from the get-go because I don't like wasting respecs. Dragon's Tail is fantastic mitigation, especially for 'weak on alpha' secondaries.

As far as not having a cohesive or standard secondary effect, I don't really see the need to get one. Especially if it's the 'chance to stun' everyone wants. I would like to see a change to Focus Chi by making it's damage bonus energy damage, or making all your damage energy damage for the duration although I doubt we'd see sweeping changes at this stage of the game.

As to Cobra Strike, it's just filler, a complete waste of a power as it is now. Clobberize it and be done with it. MA could really use another good attack to fill in the attack chain, especially early on.

As for end game, I only really had issues with Rikti bosses, and a few others. Flipping smashing res is ridiculous on those guys.

I've always felt the end usage of MA was a little high, but I don't really track that sort of thing or look at numbers much, so it's only my opinion.

According to this thread, MA damage is pretty decent. Certainly not an aoe beast, but more than respectable in the ST game. And the mitigation from DT is the big reason I take it. Keeping most of a spawn on their ***** while disassembling their buddies at your leisure is nice.

General lack of AoE is my big issue with the set. I like AoE, and Energy Melee has none. Okay, Whirling Hands, but that's more of a PBAoE taunt. I've currently got an Inv/EM I'm working on, and certainly more enjoyable now that I can colour the pom-poms.

That said, maybe throw some splash damage in TF or something. Not much, but anything to help the abysmal aoe capability of EM.

Both.

I love my Elec/Dark. So much fun. Haven't picked up CoD, not sure if I will. Got a Theft of Essence Chance for +End (immensely helpful in Dark Regen) off a random roll, and a Steadfast -KB for about 10 million.

I slotted with IO sets at 17, picking sets that gave End or Recovery bonuses early on. Ended up spending around a million to get all the recipes/salvage and ended with recovery just less than unslotted stamina.

I certainly plan to pick up Tough, not certain on Weave yet. Tough is always a good addition to a scrapper or tanker. I'd certainly recommend picking up at least Tough and slotting it. Should make a significant difference in survivability.

High-end, with a lot of IO's, I think the combo could be a monster. Even just simple low-level slotting it's a lot of fun, if not uber.

I'll toss out Inv/Fire, and Inv/WM, as two tankers that'll take a beating and dish out damage. Both have some good ST and excellent AoE damage, and Inv can take a helluva beating. Soft-capped, you'll be unstoppable.