Unconventional

Two other tips if you go Kat/WP or BS/WP or any set that has good resistance to smashing and lethal:

1. Go Magic Origin because it keeps you away from your nemesis damage types (such as puking toxic Vazilosk).

2. Try to do mostly radio missions levels 5-22 and choose foes that are mostly smashing/lethal damage, such as Lost, Outcast, Trolls, etc. Avoid any Circle of Thorns or Vazilosk mission or Tsoo missions at first.

By the time you hit 20 and especially 22, it's less important who you fight. Thorns, Banished, and Tsoo become dirt easy by now. And once you hit 28 and get your exotic mitigation from Heightened Senses, you're ready for anything.

If you roll up a character in the new i18 zones, it doesn't matter what you fight or what origin you take. None of them seem to do much other than smashing/lethal, and the leveling curve is fast to 20.

I throw in my vote for Kat/WP being the absolute most casual-friendly and solo-friendly scrapper build, period. BS/WP might be a close second or even equal, but IMO Katana just looks nicer and feels faster, and is a much better "style" match for a Ninja Run travel power if you've plopped down $10 for the Martial Arts booster pack.

Even at the high end, as others have noted, you *can* tweak out a Kat/WP build to let you fight at a fairly high level of difficulty. Certainly for casual play even at L50, it's more than enough horsepower even with mostly common IOs or Frankenslotting on the cheap. And getting to L50 is a smooth, fast ride. And CHEAP--you can do the build I list below for less than 4 million INF total spent on training enhancements, lots of DOs to keep you "in the green", and then a full set of level 25 IOs (at level 22) that will take you all the way to level 50 before you need to think about improving your enhancements further.

I say this after having recently leveled up a Kat/WP scrapper to 28 in an amazingly short amount of time (just a few real-time days), which is impressive since I'm a fairly casual player. I died maybe 3x total, due to carelessness each time.

/WP is smooth as silk for many reasons, mainly the super-high regen rate from just two skills (looking at the numbers for Fast Healing and especially a 3-heal-slotted Rise to the Challenge in Mids Hero Builder is impressive), coupled with the 30% base endurance regen rate from Quick Recovery at level 20 (without needing to use two other powers from the fitness pool just to get to the lower 25% base end regen of Stamina), coupled with decent all-around mitigation even to status holds and exotic damage types.

/WP is easy mode from level 1 through the mid 30s, whereas by comparison going with /SR or any of the other "uber" secondaries at the level 50 "crazy" gameplay levels is just a slog through pain all the way through your mid 30s. I don't know how many times I've tried a /SR scrapper and given up by the mid teens or mid 20s because it's so painfully terrible mitigation at low levels.

But Katana really smooths out the early game leveling because of that wonderful Divine Avalanche skill that you get at level 8. Suddenly, you have an easy, constant 30% resistance mitigation to smashing and lethal that is applied with every fast-recharging attack that does solid damage output in your early (pre-26) attack chains. I'm sure Broadsword's "Parry" power is similar but can't remember at what level you get that one.

So once you hit level 8, which comes very very quickly, Divine Avalanche enables you to instantly set your difficulty rating to +1 levels above your own, which means every mission is yellow and orange minions, and mostly orange and red lieuts, that you can chew through without stopping for very fast xp gain overall.

The other nice synergy of Kat/WP is that you can actually skip Stamina if you like, despite all your endurance-heavy toggles, because Quick Recovery is actually *better* than Stamina. Although to be fair, it's very easy to fit Stamina in too, which means you will never, ever sweat your endurance rates, not even for a moment. Even before getting Stamina, once you grab Quick Recovery and put even just one End Mod in it, you can run all your toggles + sprint (and combat jumping) fullt-time while fighting and never, ever run out of endurance even against foes that do mild/moderate amounts of endurance draining attacks. And that's spamming all your availlable attacks, even your AOEs and Cones in an unending attack chain, even against single targets. (Naturally you use the cone and AOE only when your DA and GC aren't recharged yet.)

When you hit level 22 and stick a full complement of basic level 25 Common IOs in every slot, you become god-mode (for leveling).

FWIW, here's the Ninja Run-based build I've used so far. Tweaked to optimum mitigation/regen levels in Mid's (For example, there's less bang for the buck for additional 2nd and 3rd slots in Quick Recovery and Stamina, so they're both only 1-slotted at first and neither gets a 2nd slot until 25 and neither will get a 3rd slot until post-30, if at all, etc. Likewise, adding Healing from the Fitness pool adds a mere +15% regen boost on top of what Fast Healing and Rise to the Challenge already give you, so I skipped Health entirely.

Main benefits of plunking down $10 for the Martial Arts booster pack to get Ninja Run are:

1. You get a "good enough" travel power by level 6: mid-50s mph (versus the travel cap of 78 mph) when jumping, and when you add Swift at level 14 you can run nearly as fast as you can jump. It's like having Super Jump at level 6, and having your choice of both Super Jump or Super Speed, as desired, by level 14. I don't notice the slight speed difference from real SJ or SS at all, frankly, and it's hella fun navigating around buildings and obstacles with Ninja Run. Just totally fun getting from point A to point B compared to every other travel skill. It's a hoot and worth the $10 all by itself.

2. You can skip Combat Jumping and Super Jump, using those typical early slots instead for two powers (Hurdle and Swift) that enable you to zip around in large mission areas (translating to faster XP income rate), to do tactical LOS pulls more effectively (tranlating to safer leveling and less dying), and to pave the way for a very early Stamina compared to builds that use Combat Jumping and Super Jump. We're talking Stamina at 24 instead of at 35.

3. Ability to have a "free" slot for a "utility" power (such as Hasten or Recall Friend, etc.) at level 30 instead of more like the late 30s. A note about Hasten. You don't *need* it for your normal attacks, especially once you pick up your last two hard-hitters at 26 and beyond. But with 55% base end regen from both Quick Recovery *and* Stamina, you can easily keep Hasten on Auto-fire for the sole purpose of making Build Up nearly permanent (by putting 3 recharges in Build Up too). This effectively *doubles* your damage output all the time rather than for just 10 seconds here and there. Hasten also makes your PBAOE and your final hard-hitting attack come back just that must faster, for even more total DPS over a given amount of time, and with your massive endurance recovery rate it's no problem at all even with all your toggles + sprint + (an eventual post-30) Combat Jumping and Fighting Pool powers, etc.

Really, by level 28, with a bunch of level 25 common IOs slotted in, you're ready to sidekick with L50 characters and you won't get beat up in L50 missions too badly (unlike some other builds I've had, like Claw/Regen, where your'e still tissue paper by that level if you go play L50 missions with someone.

-----------

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Level 29 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Katana
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Fitness

Hero Profile:
------------
Level 1: Gambler's Cut
(A) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(3) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(7) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25
(11) Damage Increase IO: Level 25
(21) Damage Increase IO: Level 25


Level 1: High Pain Tolerance
(A) Resist Damage IO: Level 25
(29) Resist Damage IO: Level 25


Level 2: Flashing Steel
(A) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(3) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(7) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25
(15) Damage Increase IO: Level 25


Level 4: Fast Healing
(A) Healing IO: Level 25
(5) Healing IO: Level 25
(5) Healing IO: Level 25


Level 6: Hurdle
(A) Jumping IO: Level 25


Level 8: Divine Avalanche
(A) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(9) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(9) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25
(13) Damage Increase IO: Level 25
(23) Damage Increase IO: Level 25


Level 10: Indomitable Will
(A) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25
(11) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25


Level 12: Build Up
(A) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 25
(13) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 25
(15) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 25


Level 14: Swift
(A) Run Speed IO: Level 25


Level 16: Rise to the Challenge
(A) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25
(17) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25
(17) Healing IO: Level 25
(19) Healing IO: Level 25
(21) Healing IO: Level 25


Level 18: The Lotus Drops
(A) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(19) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(23) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25


Level 20: Quick Recovery
(A) Endurance Modification IO: Level 25
(25) Endurance Modification IO: Level 25


Level 22: Mind Over Body
(A) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25


Level 24: Stamina
(A) Endurance Modification IO: Level 25
(25) Endurance Modification IO: Level 25


Level 26: Soaring Dragon
(A) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(27) Accuracy IO: Level 25
(27) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25


Level 28: Heightened Senses
(A) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25
(29) Defense Buff IO: Level 25


Level 30: [Empty]
Level 32: [Empty]
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl
(A) Empty


Level 1: Sprint
(A) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 25


Level 2: Rest
(A) Empty


Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 4: Ninja Run

Since /Regen has fallen out of favor in recent years, the sticked guides thread doesn't even have a recommended Claw/Regen guide anymore, let alone one that is current with IO buildouts.

My wife has an L50 Claw/Regen that she loves to solo with, on Heroic. It's her only main. Right now she's kitted out only with SOs (I know, I know... we've been away for a long time).

Just wondering if anyone has a decent L50 cookie-cutter build with IO slotting that suitable for casual soloing on Heroic (or maybe Tenacious), just following standard contacts/paper/radio/tip/morality missions. She doesn't do task forces or anything advanced.

She has about 12 million INF to burn right now on IO or recipes and comps as needed. Not sure whether that's considered a "low budget" for L50 IOs or plenty of scratch to build out anything from Auction House purchases. So that amount of INF is one constraint, and the other is we don't want to deal with PvP to find PvP-specific IOs.

Any recommendations? The IO system is way too much to wade through and figure out, honestly. I'm just not up to the task these days. We just want to play and have fun for i18 and i19.

Thanks in advance to anyone kind enough to help out!

Brilliant, commendable work. Assuming you would want to work for low game company pay, somebody should hire you as a game designer. As you say (paraphrasing), "Balance is *everything* to MMO players".

Anyway, I can't wait to see your analysis of any relevant changes in I8 and future issues. Hope you're still around playing and still motivated enough to keep revising the numbers with each issue.

It's folks like you who really provide amazing support to a game community.

[ QUOTE ]
I'd like to point out that secondary makes a difference in what attacks are 'best'. My claws/invuln no longer has Shockwave, and I picked up Spin again. Since Invuln gets so much of it's mitigation from Invinc (which requires enemies in melee) Shockwave is often counterproductive while Spin fits my secondary perfectly.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's an excellent point. Thanks

[ QUOTE ]
Again, if the the three dots is swipe (i could not remember the name while at work) then I absolutely do not recommend that power. Strike is the term that should be applied to what I do support. Strike is good enough , any day, to replace swipe. I know what I am saying here. I grinded my claws/invul from 1-50 , no PL. Solo and in teams.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, this is an example of the "as I recall" syndrome. We forget how long and boring the grind through our TO and DO levels can be. Sure, Strike and no Swipe is "good enough", but from 1-24, having Swipe in there along with Strike, FU, Focus, and Slash makes those levels go a lot more fun.

This is what respecs are for. Use Swipe until 24 and you'll be happy you did. Then get rid of it at 24 (if you've picked up Hasten by then) or else get rid of it at 26 when you pick up Evis.

That said, some people will consider the occasional Spin "more fun" than a gapless attack chain with Swipe. YMMV.

Edit: This is v2 of the guide, based on roughly 3 days worth of feedback on two forums and some additional testing with respecs of a level 45 Claws/Regen scrapper. This is still not the final version of the guide (more testing to do on some specifics), but it is in much better shape due to excellent feedback from experienced players whose viewpoints differ from my personal viewpoints. As a result, this is a much more inclusive, all-in-one, flexible guide to suit various needs and playstyles.

--------------------
Many of the Claws-based scrapper guides are now out of date. One of the most popular Hero planners (SherkSilver's CoH/CoV Character Builder) has quite a few incorrect stats regarding some Claws attacks, which can be misleading. There is also some "conventional wisdom" prevalent on the Scrapper forums that is flatly incorrect and does a disservice to newbie scrappers who are considering Claws for their primary.

This guide is an analysis of the Claws primary that is up to date as of I8. I have regularly partnered with a Claws/Regen scrapper since retail launch, and seen what has worked well and poorly for her throughout multiple respecs and power/ED changes. I also have a level 43 Claws/Regen scrapper of my own, and I even recently rolled up another Claws/Regen newbie to play from 1-22 during the recent double exp weekend to verify some of my recommendations about getting to your first respec quickly and with the most fun factor. Although I will touch on /Regen here and there (and even include a recommended build progression through level 41 for an I8 Claws/Regen scrapper), It's important to note, however, that what I'm going to say about Claws itself is true for I8 regardless of your scrapper secondary.


Why Claws over any other Scrapper primary?

Claws is best-suited for PvE and is one of the strongest PvE primaries. The main reasons to choose Claws are:

<ul type="square">[*]The fastest "feel" in terms of fight mechanics. If you choose the right mix of powers especially in the early boring levels of 1-23, you will never be standing around waiting for a power to recharge while you are getting pounded. Instead, you will constantly rolling from one attack to the next without any gaps, and all of your attacks are fast.[*]One of the more visually interesting sets of attack animations. It's very visceral. You "feel" like Wolverine. And did I mention how fast it plays?[*]You never have a boring, predictable 4- or 5-attack chain sequence. You must be aware of your skillbar and which attacks are almost recharged so that you can queue them up effectively. You will not fall asleep playing Claws.[*]The Claws version of "Build Up" (called Follow Up)is a quick-firing, quick-recharging attack in and of itself. Not only does this mean no attack-chain gap while you're triggering your build-up, but because you can get it to recharge so quickly, you can keep the damage/accuracy buff effect constant throughout an entire long fight. Even if your Follow Up misses here and there, you only go for about 9 seconds without the buff being in effect. Granted, the damage/accuracy buff is much less than what Build Up gives you, but that's more than compensated for by the sheer length of time that this buff effectively lasts.[*]Claws is one of the only two scrapper primaries that has a ranged attack (Focus). Best of all, this fast-recharging and high-damage attack does knock-down and it does *not* immobilize the target like Spines' Impale does. This is important because pulling singles from a difficult group is an important skill for a scrapper, because we tend to be vulnerable to alpha strikes. Also, the knockdown is priceless for mitigating the incoming damage from tough Lieuts and Bosses.[*]Claws has two knockdown attacks in the set. We've already discussed Focus, but the other is Shockwave, which is underrated by many players because of its low damage-per-endurance efficiency. However, Shockwave is priceless at higher levels (35+) because it is a 90-degree cone with a 30-foot range that has a very strong knockdown quotient. You don't use this power for damage, you use it for crowd control and mitigating a tough alpha strike. You don't slot it for damage, but instead you slot it for recharge and accuracy so that you can reuse it every 7 seconds.[*]Although Claws is not *the* AOE scrapper set (that award goes to Spines), it still have very strong conditional AOE capabilities that are quite valuable if you regularly run around with medium-to-large groups. Even if you mostly solo or duo, the AOE attacks are conditionally useful at times, but you might choose to pick up the AOE attacks later in your build if you primarily solo/duo.[/list]

Why *NOT* Claws?

Claws is great for PvE, but is not the best-suited primary for PvP. Why? Because PvP is all about the alpha strike. Whomever does the most front-loaded damage generally wins, all other factors being equal. Claws is not a front-loaded damage set, but instead is a constant DPS set. Once you begin your attack, you are an implacable force and you never slow down. But you don't have a big alpha strike capability like, for example, the Broadsword primary does.

One of Claws' strengths for PvE--it's knockback capabilities--is also a detriment in many players' opinions. Why? Because when a foe is knocked-back, they are moved out of AOE damage effects and every other meleer on the team has to chase after the knocked-down foe. When you're chasing after a foe, you're not doing damage, and pretty much everyone realizes that for a scrapper, your offense is your best defense.

I think this concern about knockback has merit if you plan to team often with other people, or you plan to partner often with a player whose build relies heavily on AOE damage. When I played my fire blaster alongside my wife's Claws/Regen scrapper, for example, she would often knock one mob (or an entire group) back just when I was lining up to spray my cone damage, for example, which was admittedly frustrating for me. I had to learn her attack rhythms to be able to guess when to best fire off my various AOE attacks.

If, however, you are primarily a solo artist (and Scrappers are the *best* solo artists on the Hero side, IMO), or if you regularly partner with another player who doesn't rely on AOE too much, then Claws is the best PvE primary if you like fast, entertaining gameplay.

If you enjoy playing a more controller-ish type of game, with holds and immobilizes, then again, Claws is probably not for you and there are better Scrapper primaries for you. But in my opinion, Scrappers in general are meant to be pure offense, for whom the maxim "the best defense is a good offense" truly applies. The consistent DPS and gapless attack chains, coupled with two excellent knockback powers for mitigation of bosses and alpha strikes, goes a *long* way towards improving your survivability.


Analysis of the powers

I'm going to present my analysis of the powers in the set in an unconventional way. Rather than a power-by-power breakdown and rating, I'm going to look at the synergistic groupings of powers in the set.


The must-haves and the worthless powers

The first important grouping is to determine the powers that are "must-haves" versus the powers you can safely skip without regret. Here's where I'm going to drop one bombshell that goes against the "conventional wisdom" you'll see repeated over and over on the Scrapper forum when people ask for help with their Claws/x scrapper build.

<ul type="square">[*]MUST-HAVE: Swipe (until level 26), Strike, Slash, Follow-up, Focus, Shockwave[*]CONDITIONALLY USEFUL: Spin, Eviscerate[*]BASICALLY WORTHLESS: Confront[/list]
Now let me explain the two choices in this list that I expect will be controversial: Swipe and Spin. Most people think Swipe is worthless, and many people like Spin a lot and would consider it a "must-have".

First let's discuss Swipe, about which pretty much everyone universally says "skip it". You have to remember that most of the experienced players listing builds are already in their high levels or at max level. Admittedly, Swipe is not of much use when you're 26+. However, I feel *strongly* that Swipe is absolutely priceless until at least after you pick up Focus, and even then it is still worth having until you can do your first respec at 24.

Once you can do your first respec at 24, I feel that the best replacement for Swipe is Spin. Note for a brand-new character, I very specifically don't recommend taking Spin earlier in the build, because I think Swipe gives you a lot more for your money during levels 1-23. The basic reason I recommend this course of action is because Spin's long 12-second recharge time means you'll have gaps in your attack chain all the way to level 24, when you have the first good opportunity to pick up Hasten (assuming you don't take Hasten-&gt;SS as your travel power), or even all the way up to level 26 when you can pick up Eviscerate if for some reason you don't take Hasten at all or take it much later than level 26.

So I'd like you to fix in your mind the relationship between Swipe and a gapless attack chain below level 24. Any other build that does not include Swipe in the early levels below 24 *will* have gaps in the attack chain unless you want to waste enhancement slots on brawl.

Some might argue that after you pick up Focus at 18 you essentially have a gapless attack chain without needing Swipe any more. But these folks would be wrong, because they're forgetting how many different mobs have powers that slow your attack rate. Granted, when you are not slowed, you can ignore the Swipe sitting on your hotbar. But the minute you are slowed, Swipe becomes the gap-filler in your attack chain.

The second big fallacy regarding swipe is that its damage efficiency is inferior to the rest of the set. This is *not* true. In terms of endurance efficiency (damage per point of endurance), the following attacks are all EQUAL: Strike, Swipe, Slash, Focus, and Spin (if you hit 3+ foes with it). (If you don't believe me, look up the relevant data on City of Data and do the math for yourself.) Yes, it's true that Swipe does *less* damage than Strike, Slash, or Focus and therefore it's easy to arrive at the flawed conclusion that it somehow lowers your average DPS. But what's wrong with this reasoning is the fact that without Swipe, you will have *gaps* in your attack chain before level 18. And when a gap happens, where you're doing nothing while waiting for some skill to recharge, you are putting out exactly 0 DPS. Therefore, using Swipe to fill that gap is greater than 0 DPS and therefore Swipe is contributing to a greater overall average DPS. It's really that simple.

Note: Let me be very clear, before continuing, that there are two levels of DPS. There's a per-attack DPS, and there's the average DPS over time generated by an attack chain. In any given attack chain, if you are queing up the highest per-attack DPS attacks first, *AND* you have no gaps in the chain at all, then you are generating the maximum average DPS. If, however, there are any gaps in your chain, then for the duration of that gap you are putting out 0 DPS and therefore the average DPS goes down.

Back to Swipe and its positive effect on average DPS through levels 1-23, you can trust me on this point because I recently verified it during the double exp weekend by rolling up a newbie Claws/Regen scrapper for testing and leveled her from 1 to 22 while periodically hopping over to the Test server to try out alternatives to Swipe. I don't care what any "experienced" scrapper might recollect from memory; it's a simple, verifiable fact that if Hasten is not in the picture, and if you are limiting yourself to 5 attacks (which is the most you can effectively slot up prior to level 26), you get the highest average DPS with this attack chain: Follow-up &gt; Slash &gt; Focus &gt; Strike, with Swipe filling in the gaps and you always prioritizing FU first when it's ready, followed by whichever highest DPS attack is next-recharged.

Swipe, Strike, and Slash are your bread and butter damage attacks through level 18. If, on the other hand, you are trying to limp by with only Strike and Slash, or if you pick up a slower-recharging attack like Air Superiority (or Spin) instead of Swipe, you will have gaps in your attack chain and you will not put out nearly as much average DPS. The difference is noticeable, both in how fast you mow down entire groups and in how much damage you take doing so. I'm not talking from theory or from memory in this regard. I'm talking from direct empirical evidence from spending a weekend testing this concept.

Now let's talk about my other controversial choice: Spin. Many people like Spin and would consider it a "must-have" power and feel that it's quite logical to take Spin instead of Swipe even in the early 1-25 levels of a build. On the other hand, if you are primarily a soloist or team only in duos, you might not find nearly as much value in Spin in the early levels, if at all. I self-admittedly fall into the soloist/duoist camp, so I feel Spin is essentially worthless compared to Swipe in the early 1-25 levels. (But I have been convinced that even for a soloist/duoist it is worthwhile as a conditional attack to be added when you do your first respec at 24--more on that later.)

The reason that a soloist/duoist might find less value in Spin is quite simple. Its AOE radius is only 5 meters. That means it will hit *only* the mobs that are slightly outside direct melee range, relative to yourself. Due to AI changes over the years, however, it's fairly rare to get more than 2 mobs in melee range of yourself. if you are soloing or duoing in the early levels 1-25. Spin needs to hit at least 3 mobs to be as endurance-efficient as Strike, Swipe, Slash, and Focus. (Again, look at City of Data and do the math for yourself if you don't believe this simple fact.) Since as a soloist/duoist you won't have many opportunities to hit 3 or more mobs at once with Spin, therefore, it becomes only conditionally useful.

Conditionally useful attack are fine after level 25 or so by then you either have Hasten or you have enough enhancement slots to effectively add a 6th attack such as Eviscerate, so it becomes practical at that time to swap out Swipe for Spin, because Swipe is no longer needed to fill gaps in your attack chain. So you'll have Spin sitting there ready when it will be useful.

If you plan to group frequently with medium or large groups right from the get-go in your early levels, then you might find it worth losing out on some average DPS by *not* taking Swipe in the early levels, and taking Spin at 6 instead. You might find this a worthwhile tradeoff even though your attack chain will have some distinct gaps in it. If you solo and you want to move through these boring lower levels quickly, you will probably be happier with Swipe at first and taking Spin later during your first respec at 24. It's easy to forget how slowly those first levels seem to crawl by when you're actually trudging through them. I'll also note that if this is an alt character for you, you might feel really useless when sidekicked to high-level players if you don't take Swipe in the early levels. I routinely SK all of my newbies with my level 45 partner or my even higher level guildmates. With only Strike and Slash and FU and either Spin or Air Sup, I felt soooooooo useless. (I made my partner come over to test with me to try those other attack chain combos.) It was like I was standing around with my thumb up my rear end most of the time. It's amazing the difference that laying down all those Swipes and having totally gapless attack chains made me feel in those situations.


The Golden Rule: Endurance = Average DPS

So my comments about the relative value of Spin lead into this section. I'd like you to fix in your mind the equation that "Endurance = Average DPS". What I mean by this is that if you are always queuing up your hardest-hitting attacks first in a gapless chain, AND if those hardest-hitting attacks are the most endurance-efficient as possible, then you are putting out the most DPS over time of which you're capable. The key principle here is that you cannot just look at the raw orange damage numbers, nor at the per-attack DPS of any one attack; you must also examine the endurance cost of your attack chain over time.

Also essential to this concept is that in a long fight, you can come close to burning out all of your endurance in the early levels before you pick up either Stamina or Quick Recovery and fully slot them out, so getting the most bang for the buck with every point of endurance spent is crucial to *sustained* DPS throughout the fight. (As an aside, this is one reason that Regen is so useful as a PvE secondary--Quick Recovery is a much better version of Stamina, by a factor of 10:6.)

Using the baseline damage and endurance numbers for the various Claws attacks as listed on City of Data, here's the relative endurance-efficiency of the Claws attacks. The numbers are expressed in points of damage per point of endurance (DPE):

<ul type="square">[*]15.04 DPE: Swipe, Strike, Slash, Focus[*]12.03 DPE: Eviscerate (24.06 if you manage to nail 2 foes with it, 36.09 if you hit 3 foes, etc.)[*]6.84 DPE: Spin (13.68 if you hit 2 foes, or 20.52 if you hit 3 foes, etc.)[*]6.42 DPE: Follow Up[*]5.95 DPE: Shockwave (same DPE scaling as Spin and Eviscerate for hitting multiple foes)[/list]
From this list of relative DPE, you can see that you get the most bang for the buck when hitting single-targets from Swipe, Strike, Slash, and Focus, with Eviscerate coming in as a close second.

If you have 2 targets in close melee range, then Eviscerate is giving you the most bang for the buck. If you have 3 or more targets within an 8-foot range, then Spin comes into play and is probably giving you equal or more bang for the buck compared to Eviscerate, due to Spin's 360-degree radius.

On the face of these DPE numbers, it looks like Follow Up and Shockwave are relatively weak attacks (unless you can nail at least 5 foes with Shockwave each time), but the strength in FU and Shockwave lies not really in their damage, but in their utility effects. (This is why I don't recommend slotting either attack for much damage, instead preferring to slot them for a fast recharge.)

What's the moral of this section? That ultimately, the amount of endurance that you have to play around with determines how much force you can effectively exert over the course of a long fight. This is one reason for the popularity of /Regen as a scrapper secondary, and in particular is a strong match up for Claws. The Quick Recovery skill gives you 66% more endurance recovery to work with than Stamina give you.


Single-target chains versus AOE attacks

In my first draft of this guide, I made the heavy-handed comment that Claws should not be thought of as an AOE set at all, and that Spin was essentially worthless. My wife and I had given up on Spin on our scrappers long ago around I4 or I5. So admittedly, my strong comments were based on personal bias because we mostly solo or duo with each other and rarely spend time in larger teams.

The feedback to my first draft was full of excellent reasons and examples of why many players place high value in Spin and these same players *do* tend to think of Claws as a balanced single-target/AOE set.

I'd classify the various attacks in Claws in this manner:

<ul type="square">[*]Single-target: Swipe/Eviscerate, Strike, Slash, Focus[*]Buff (constant): Follow Up[*]Control/Mitigation: Shockwave, Focus, Confront[*]Pulling: Focus, Confront[*]Conditional AOE: Spin, Eviscerate, Shockwave[/list]
Notice that Focus does triple-duty as one of your strongest single-target attacks, a great pulling attack, and as one of your control/mitigation attacks. Eviscerate does double-duty as a strong single-target attack that gets sweeter if you can nail 2+ foes in its very short 5-foot cone, so it's kinda an AOE attack but I still primarily think of Eviscerate as a single-target attack with a high crit factor. Confront also does double-duty as control/mitigation or pulling, but it's overall the weakest power in the set and not worth fitting into many builds.

Shockwave also does double-duty, being just amazingly valuable as a mitigation against alpha strikes and the early stages of chewing through a big group (provided you slot it up for a fast recharge).

The reason I like to categorize the Claws set in this manner is that it highlights one aspect of each power's relative worth that is not otherwise immediately obvious: double- or triple-duty attacks, in general, are more valuable than attacks that serve only one role. Think about it. This makes Eviscerate, Shockwave, and especially Focus all quite valuable. I think it's important to especially look at Eviscerate and Shockwave in this light because there are more than a few comments on the Scrapper forum that would make these seem like two of the least-desirable powers. For Eviscerate, especially, people tend to focus on its long animation time and overlook the fact that it comes with a significantly high chance to crit. It's also the highest DPE attack if you manage to nail even just 2 foes with it, and it's really not bad for DPE if you only hit one foe with it.

So for single-target damage chains, I'd personally put Eviscerate right up there with Focus in terms of priority.

Now, because Claws is not the preeminent AOE set (it's Spines that gets that honor), I'd recommend thinking of Claws as a single-target set with a few really good opportunistic AOEs for conditional use. The key here is to plan your builds with an eye towards creating a solid single-target attack chain, and only after you have got a strong single-target chain in place should you add the more conditional AOE attacks. Your bread and butter, especially in the early levels 1-25, is your single-target chain.

When you consider this philosophical approach and add it to the previously discussed fact that taking Spin too early creates an attack chain with gaps in it, I hope you'll agree that even though you *could* take Spin as early as level 6, you're better off waiting until level 24 (your first respec) to add it into your build. I also hope that you'll endeavor to find a place for both Eviscerate and Shockwave as soon as you possibly can after your bread-and-butter single-target attack chain is fleshed out.


What to replace Swipe with when you respec at 24 or pick up Eviscerate at 26?

Assuming you grab Hasten at 24 *and* respec after doing so (which I recommend), what is the best power to replace Swipe with? In the first draft of this guide, I voted strongly for Air Superiority at this point because of its synergy with Focus for boss control (2 knockdown/back powers in your single-target attack chain). The DPE of Air Sup is the same as for Strike, Slash, etc. (15.04 DPE), so not only are you getting amazing knockdown utility, but it's not lowering your average DPS either except by a small amount based on the virtual gap caused by the animation redraws when you switch between Air Sup and your Claw attacks.

The only drawback to using Air Sup in a Claws build is the redraw time when you switch back and forth between Air Sup and your Claws attacks. Therefore, I don't tend to use Air Sup except when it's really needed, which is against tough bosses who could otherwise really hurt me. In that case, I'll gladly trade the slight drop in average DPS for the fact that between Focus and Air Sup (and maybe even the occasional Shockwave) I can keep a boss on his back most of the time. If you don't want to "waste" Shockwaves on a boss, you can add an SO recharge to Air Sup and either that or Focus will always be available to knock him down/back again.

After assimilating and testing the feedback regarding my first draft of this guide, however, I now recommend taking Spin as your replacement for Swipe. (By moving Strike to level 1 and taking Spin at level 6.) Air Sup is still great to have, but in retrospect you can comfortably wait until level 35 to take Air Sup, because the really nasty bosses and dual bosses don't start cropping up until the mid- to late-30s anyway. So for levels 24-34, I'd have to agree that Spin is more situationally useful and can contribute to higher average DPS in long fits if you're good at herding foes, or if you're spending a lot of time in medium to large groups.


What's the best secondary for Claws?

Many of the Scrapper secondaries are good and solid. That said, I'll recommend /Regen every time as the perfect matchup for Claws. Why? The first item in the following list is the main reason. (The remaining items in the list are nice but they apply to any scrapper primary.)
<ul type="square">[*]Quick Recovery is priceless to a high-DPS scrapper, and Claws is *the* high-DPS scrapper set. If your attack chains are gapless, you will burn the endurance during a long fight faster than Stamina alone can keep up with (especially while you're still in the DO ranges).[*]The status protection from Integration is just all-around awesome. Nothing is more frustrating than being sleeped, stunned, disoriented, or knocked back. Integration is just priceless if you enjoy laughing at most mobs that make other meleers (or any archetype, really) very nervous. Seriously, you'll laugh in their faces as you shred Carnie Strongmen and Illusionists, just as one example.[*]You have only one toggle: Integration. This means less endurance drain and therefore longer sustained high DPS, and it means fewer toggles to deal with turning on again when dropped by a foe. Plus, the benefit that Integration provides isn't a critical life-or-death benefit during the periods you might fumble around getting it toggled on again, unlike some other toggles in the scrapper secondaries.[*]Reconstruction is among the best scrapper self-heals, mainly because you can get it to recharge extremely fast. Because you are not a front-loaded damage dealer, you will take more damage over time than some other scrapper primaries, so having a consistent, frequent rate of self-healing complements our DPS nature well.[*]Dull Pain is excellent for buffering yourself against the dreaded alpha strike, which is the bane of all scrappers. Don't laugh at an extra 500-700 HP going into a big alpha strike. Even with Shockwave helping to mitigate the incoming damage before you shred several minions or a strategic target like a Sapper, you'll be glad for the extra HP.[/list]
You'll notice I didn't even mention Fast Healing, or Instant Healing, or Resilience, all of which are useful powers from the /Regen secondary. They're nice and useful, but nothing stellar. Your survivability doesn't really come from being able to heal yourself or from damage resistance, but instead from your ability to dish out the constant DPS that never flags, coupled with some excellent knockback/knockdown abilities.

Instant Healing, in particular, used to be *the* reason to take /Regen, but of course that was overpowered and long since nerfed into the ground. To the point that it's now considered an optional power by many folks. Despite this nerfing of Regen, it's *still* the strongest secondary for Claws, in my opinion, for the reasons stated.


So what about a recommended build already?

Here ya go. Three builds, actually: one for a newbie from 1-23, another for your first respec at 24, and another for a reslotting tweak at 41. I've recently tested the early portions (level 1-22) during the double exp weekend on a throwaway character. The first "newbie" build has been tweaked and honed to be fast and furious right from the get-go, which helps to alleviate the boredom of the early levels. Once you grab Hasten at 24, you'll want to do your first respec to trade Swipe for Spin, which is an extremely simple respec because you just move Strike to level 1 and take Spin at level 6 instead, and you can use exactly the same slots and enhancements in Spin that you used for Swipe. So you won't have to hassle with reslotting and buying different enhancements, etc.

Be aware, though, that after your first respec, you won't scale back nearly as nicely when exemplared. Your DPS below level 26 won't be nearly as good as when you had Swipe in your attack chain. If you plan to exemplar a lot (guild support, partner/friend with alt-itis, etc.), then you might want to consider keeping Swipe even past level 26.

Also note that if you hate the idea of dealing with respecs, you *could* just use the "1st respec" build right from level 1, or even the "reslotting" build right from level 1. The disadvantages of doing so, however, are that your first 25 levels will seem to crawl by, especially the first 17 levels before you get Focus. Also, if you opt to start right away with the "reslotting" build, your accuracy will be lower overall and you'll whiff more often, which will slow you down and seem more boring/frustrating. It's up to you. I think the fun-factor makes starting out with Swipe and doing the two respecs very worthwhile.

Some might argue that 2 accuracies per attack from levels 1-40 is overslotting for accuracy because of the to-hit buff from Follow Up, which equates roughly to 1 accuracy SO. I'll point out, however, that when you whiff your Follow Up attack, it means you've got roughly 10 seconds of "downtime" during which your attacks are all operating as if they had only one accuracy SO in them. Your mileage might vary, so it's your choice in this regard. If you believe that one accuracy SO is enough, then slot an End Rdx in place of the second accuracy and save yourself the hassle of the 2nd respec. Me? I *hate* whiffing an attack, so to me those 2 accuracy SOs are priceless until I can pick up Focused Accuracy at 41. Plus, I spend a lot of time with my newbies running around sidekicked to level 45+ players, so I'm always attacking red and purple (to me) bosses. That extra accuracy goes a long way in those situations.

Regarding travel powers and the fitness pool (especially my recommendation to take Swift at 10), there's a lot of leeway for personal preference. I highly value having both Combat Jumping and Swift as early as possible because it gives me all the battle and street-roving mobility I need. Also, since I spend a lot of time SKed to players who have Swift somewhere in their build, it helps me keep up without burning precious endurance from Sprint.

Also, I'm strongly predisposed to Super Jump. I've tried every travel power and SJ is just the most fun travel power besides being one of the fastest. Regardless, if you want to do something different with your 10, 12, and 14th level slots, by all means go ahead. You might prefer something like Stealth and Hasten and Super Speed in those slots, to give you total invisibility for soloing missions quickly (stealth-run to the boss and kill him, avoiding all the early mobs, etc.). However, there's a warning here to think about. In my recommended builds, you'll notice that the level 10, 12, and 14 slots all require only one enhancement slot each (the free slot). There's a reason for this, and the reason is to be able to slot up my bread and butter attacks faster. If you take different choices than I recommend, I would suggest that you try to keep them to 1-slot choices or your average DPS will suffer.

The final thing I might expect some people to argue with is my choice to slot both Follow Up and Shockwave with recharge and little to no damage. During levels 1-21, I recommend 2 accuracy and 2 recharge in Follow Up. When you can get SOs at level 22, switch to 1 accuracy, 1 recharge, and one damage. Why? To maintain a roughly 8-9 second recharge time on Follow Up, so that you can maintain the buff constantly throughout a long fight. Note that slotting 2 SO recharges in FU doesn't buy that much because it only drops the recharge time to 7 seconds. A 1- to 1.5 second theoretical stacking of the buff doesn't really equate to much in real world conditions. All you need is a recharge rate that is sufficiently shorter than 10 seconds so that you can keep the buff constant.

As for Shockwave slotting, you have some flexibility to deviate from my recommended slotting. I personally feel that it's MUCH more valuable to be able to fire off a Shockwave every 8 seconds early in a big fight than to do strong damage with it but only be able to fire it off every 12 seconds. Alternative slotting could be, for example, 1x accuracy, 2x range, 3x damage, because increasing the range to 42 feet greatly widens the cone and you can (reportedly) hit an entire large group easily this way.


------------------------

Newbie (1-23)

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Claw_Regen_Newbie
Level: 23
Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Claws
Secondary: Regeneration
---------------------------------------------
01) --&gt; Swipe==&gt; Acc(1)Acc(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(9)
01) --&gt; Fast Healing==&gt; Heal(1)
02) --&gt; Slash==&gt; Acc(2)Acc(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(11)
04) --&gt; Reconstruction==&gt; Rechg(4)Rechg(15)Rechg(15)
06) --&gt; Strike==&gt; Acc(6)Acc(7)Dmg(7)Dmg(11)
08) --&gt; Follow Up==&gt; Acc(8)Acc(9)Rechg(13)Rechg(13)
10) --&gt; Swift==&gt; Run(10)
12) --&gt; Combat Jumping==&gt; Jump(12)
14) --&gt; Super Jump==&gt; Jump(14)
16) --&gt; Integration==&gt; Heal(16)Heal(17)Heal(17)
18) --&gt; Focus==&gt; Acc(18)Acc(19)Dmg(19)Dmg(21)Dmg(21)
20) --&gt; Quick Recovery==&gt; EndMod(20)EndMod(23)EndMod(23)
22) --&gt; Dull Pain==&gt; Rechg(22)

-------------------------


First Respec (24-40)

Note: the order in which you take Resilience, Instant Healing, and Hurdle is completely flexible. Also, if you can find a power more worthwhile to you than Hurdle *and* which requires only one enhancement slot to be useful, feel free to take something else instead.

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Claw_Regen_1st_Respec (at 24)
Level: 40
Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Claws
Secondary: Regeneration
---------------------------------------------
01) --&gt; Strike==&gt; Acc(1)Acc(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(9)Dmg(31)
01) --&gt; Fast Healing==&gt; Heal(1)
02) --&gt; Slash==&gt; Acc(2)Acc(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(11)Dmg(31)
04) --&gt; Reconstruction==&gt; Rechg(4)Rechg(15)Rechg(15)Heal(39)Heal(39)Heal(39)
06) --&gt; Spin==&gt; Acc(6)Acc(7)Dmg(7)Dmg(11)Dmg(33)
08) --&gt; Follow Up==&gt; Acc(8)Acc(9)Rechg(13)Rechg(13)Dmg(31)Dmg(33)
10) --&gt; Swift==&gt; Run(10)
12) --&gt; Combat Jumping==&gt; Jump(12)
14) --&gt; Super Jump==&gt; Jump(14)
16) --&gt; Integration==&gt; Heal(16)Heal(17)Heal(17)
18) --&gt; Focus==&gt; Acc(18)Acc(19)Dmg(19)Dmg(21)Dmg(21)
20) --&gt; Quick Recovery==&gt; EndMod(20)EndMod(23)EndMod(23)
22) --&gt; Dull Pain==&gt; Rechg(22)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)Heal(40)Heal(40)Heal(40)
24) --&gt; Hasten==&gt; Rechg(24)Rechg(37)Rechg(37)
26) --&gt; Eviscerate==&gt; Acc(26)Acc(27)Dmg(27)Dmg(29)Dmg(29)
28) --&gt; Resilience==&gt; DmgRes(28)
30) --&gt; Instant Healing==&gt; Rechg(30)
32) --&gt; Shockwave==&gt; Acc(32)Acc(33)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)
35) --&gt; Air Superiority==&gt; Acc(35)Acc(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(37)
38) --&gt; Hurdle==&gt; Jump(38)

--------------------


Reslotting Tweak (41-50)

Note: The powers you take and the remaining slots you distribute from levels 43+ are completely flexible. I'd recommend taking Laser Beam Eyes and Energy Torrent as one of your two remaining power slots, but really, by level 42 you are fully loaded for bear in terms of Claws/Regen powers.

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Claw_Regen_Reslotting (at 41)
Level: 42
Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Claws
Secondary: Regeneration
---------------------------------------------
01) --&gt; Strike==&gt; Acc(1)EndRdx(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(9)Dmg(31)
01) --&gt; Fast Healing==&gt; Heal(1)
02) --&gt; Slash==&gt; Acc(2)EndRdx(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(11)Dmg(31)
04) --&gt; Reconstruction==&gt; Rechg(4)Rechg(15)Rechg(15)Heal(39)Heal(39)Heal(39)
06) --&gt; Spin==&gt; Acc(6)EndRdx(7)Dmg(7)Dmg(11)Dmg(33)
08) --&gt; Follow Up==&gt; Acc(8)EndRdx(9)Rechg(13)Rechg(13)Dmg(31)Dmg(33)
10) --&gt; Swift==&gt; Run(10)
12) --&gt; Combat Jumping==&gt; Jump(12)
14) --&gt; Super Jump==&gt; Jump(14)
16) --&gt; Integration==&gt; Heal(16)Heal(17)Heal(17)
18) --&gt; Focus==&gt; Acc(18)EndRdx(19)Dmg(19)Dmg(21)Dmg(21)
20) --&gt; Quick Recovery==&gt; EndMod(20)EndMod(23)EndMod(23)
22) --&gt; Dull Pain==&gt; Rechg(22)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)Heal(40)Heal(40)Heal(40)
24) --&gt; Hasten==&gt; Rechg(24)Rechg(37)Rechg(37)
26) --&gt; Eviscerate==&gt; Acc(26)EndRdx(27)Dmg(27)Dmg(29)Dmg(29)
28) --&gt; Instant Healing==&gt; Rechg(28)
30) --&gt; Resilience==&gt; DmgRes(30)
32) --&gt; Shockwave==&gt; Acc(32)EndRdx(33)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)
35) --&gt; Air Superiority==&gt; Acc(35)EndRdx(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(37)
38) --&gt; Hurdle==&gt; Jump(38)
41) --&gt; Focused Accuracy==&gt; EndRdx(41)EndRdx(42)EndRdx(42)

Thanks, I'll experiment with this

Excellent reply by HotButteredSoul and a good illustration of why Spin is considered useful by many people. I'll admit that I'm more of a soloist (who partners frequently with *one* other player) and not much of a large group player. So that admittedly colors my perception of Spin and perhaps I will amend my guide slightly to be less harsh on Spin, lol. (Especially after I finish my own re-testing of the 5- versus 8-foot range question and it's effect on how often a soloist can make good use of Spin.)

Meanwhile, over on the Scrapper forum there was this really exellent commentary on my guide, made by Stupid_Fanboy. It was good enough to repost here as a good example of some typical differences of opinion among the Scrapper community. The quoted bits are Stupid_Fanboy's comments.

[ QUOTE ]

(Regarding AOEs, especially Spin) Of course you're going to say it has horrible EPD. It's balanced for use against multiple mobs. Spamming AoEs against less than optimal numbers of targets is not a good idea. It's only ever a good idea with Shockwave when you can properly utilize the knockback with Focus's knockdown. So for you to complain about the efficiency of these powers when you use and slot it in an inefficient manner. Well, the problem isn't the power then. The entire point of these powers is to use them on multiple targets. You can't call them inefficient by the numbers right along with saying "you'll rarely hit 3 or more mobs at once with Spin, therefore, Swipe is better endurance efficiency. It's that simple." That's completely ridiculous. If by rarely, you mean, at least 50% of fights, then yes, I agree. Otherwise, I do not. It is very simple to position yourself and your targets to properly use these powers. "Rarely" is unnecessarily negative.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I've mentioned earlier (or perhaps in the similar thread on the Guides forum, I'm reevaluating some things I said about Spin right now (by rolling a noob to 6 and then playing around with attack chains, positioning, and seeing if the range is really 8 feet now--long enough to hit additional targets outside of direct melee range.) As noted, I and my wife wrote off this power several editions ago, so I frankly glossed over the 8 ft range number in City of Data. I do still feel that with a long 12 second base recharge, the power won't chain efficently with only FU, Slash, and Strike at their base recharge speeds (FU can't really get its recharge speeded up until you're in your DO enhancements).

Regardless of chain considerations, our main gripe was that 50% number that you yourself have noted. As a *late* power in your powerset, after you have got a optimal bread-and-butter single-target DPS chain going strong, I agree that Spin could be useful as a conditional power. But as part of your bread-and-butter attack chain in the early levels, its inefficient. Between its slow 12-second base recharge and the fact that you can only effectively use it 50% or less of the time, I feel that Spin should not be taken early in a build. Depending on the results of my range testing, I might recommend taking Spin in place of Eviscerate in my build (and perhaps sooner than at level 26). But I doubt I'll recommend it as a replacement for Swipe in the 1-21 level range.


[ QUOTE ]

Also, your contention that AoEs are a bad use of end because other mobs regen while you kill the first mob is completely wrong. The only mobs that regen fast enough to make splash damage a non-factor are EBs and AVs. And you do not use Spin or Shockwave on them unless they are surrounded by other mobs. And I assure you, if you concentrate on the AV and throw out Spin every time it recharges, every minion will be dead around you within 3-4 uses. So in reality, mob regen isn't a negative mark against AoEs.

And then later, because you don't really understand how to efficiently use AoEs, you say that people should stop thinking of Claws as an AoE set. I.. wow. Seriously, that's the really, really wrong. No, none of the scrappers sets get very close to the AoE damage of Spines. But you can bet your sweet behind that the AoEs of Claws are better than than those of the other sets. They are more efficient in terms of end and recharge and over time will put out more AoE damage than any other set but Spines.

I can't possibly disagree with your view of Claws's AoE attacks more.

[/ QUOTE ]

I respect your disagreement and understand that my position on the matter is a controversial one. However, it's not that I don't understand how to efficiently use AOE. It's that I feel that Claws' AOE capability is itself inherently less efficent... so much so that I prefer to focus on the set's single-target capabilities. I notice that you don't disagree with my comments about Eviscerate, which I'll never understand why they gave it only a 5-foot melee range. Maybe an 8- to 10-foot radius would make it a bona fide AOE power. Spines is the only real AOE set, and if you like AOE you should take Spines, IMO. I'll also note that I'm not the only one who feels that Claws is a single-target set with some conditional AOE powers that are useful only if you can fit them into your core build. There's a Claws/SR guide that takes a similar position to mine.

So at the heart of the matter is the philosophical divide, I think, between those of us who feel you should view Claws so-called AOE attacks as conditional fillers to be slotted later in a build versus those of us who feel Spin should be taken at 6 and the AOE capabilities used as often as possible throughout the life of a build.

Again, I go back to my (over)simplified example of a new solo encounter with 6 mobs. If I kill 2 of them with my FU-Slash-Strike-Swipe chain in the same time that I could kill only 1 of them with my FU-Spin-Slash-Strike chain, I'm left with either 4 or 5 mobs shooting at me at the end of that time span. If I have only 4 mobs shooting at me, I've mitigated the incoming damage (the "alpha strike") by 33 percent. If I have 5 mobs still shooting at me, I've mitigated the incoming damage by only 16%. Yes, this is an oversimplified example, but the math is sound, as is the logic. Extrapolate this to a huge 6-person team fight against a huge enemy group and the math scales appropriately. My point is simply that the one main enemy of scrappers, and indeed all squishies, is surviving the alpha strike. (And by "alpha strike" I don't mean only the very first opening salvo, but really the first 15-20% of a fight with a new group.)

Granted, several scrapper secondaries, especiallya high level /Regen or /SR, can make you *very* resilient against an alpha strike, so I can see why many people will feel that their own experience doesn't agree with my assertions, but the math is the math. Subjectively, it might not seem like there's any real difference between your position and mine, but objectively, there is a quantifiable difference.

As for Boss fights and the like, as I've said, my wife and I long ago switched our handling of bosses as follows. First we kill off all the minions/lieuts near the boss, saving the boss for last. The only time we'd go after the boss first is if it's a pesky one that can hurt you too bad while you kill off the minions and lieuts, and even then it would be mostly to keep knocking him back with Focus and Shockwave when those recharge, while continuing to use our single-target attacks on the minions/lieuts. Why did we make this change? Because we found that all that incoming damage from the minions and lieuts left alive for 3-4 "Spin cycles" (lol) added up too fast. We finish Boss fights with a lot more health and a lot less risk since we changed tactics. So yes, while you *can* beat on a boss and eventually kill off the nearby minion/lieut guards with 3-4 Spins, we simply found that less effective. More *fun* perhaps, but less effective.

[ QUOTE ]

2. Focus at 20.

The benefit of the taking the power immediately is not to be denied. I can't really imagine a claws regen having end problems at 16 with CJ and Int as their toggles either. So to say that Focus causes you end problems, that just doesn't match my experiences at all and nor any other claws/regen I've ever heard. Part of reason you may feel this way might have to do with your choice of taking Swift at 10. You rush to get the Stamina pre-req in and then take Stamina at 30. basically what you say with that choice is that you feel you get more use from Swift at 10 than Dull Pain at 10 or Focus at 18. I can't ever agree with that. Focus is an ASAP power, more than any other in Claws. Or Regen for that matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

I want to focus on your statement "I can't imagine a claws regen having end problems at 16 with CJ and Int as their toggles..."

That's exactly what I meant by my assertion that high level players cannot accurately remember what it was like for them in the early, pre-SO levels, or perhaps even in their 20s or 30s. This applies to myself too, and it's why I took the opportunity this past double-exp weekend to quickly grind up a newbie Claws/Regen from 1-22. *Trust me*, I was running out of regen and popping blues far too often after 16, and remember, I was using Swipe and not something like Spin in my attack chains. It was quite obvious that taking Focus at 18 would be a mistake, because my biggest bottleneck after 16 was my endurance. Also, I was putting out massive, totally efficient damage with my FU-Slash-Strike-Swipe chain and having no problem killing anything, so it wasn't like waiting 2 more levels to get Focus was slowing me down.

Perhaps the fact that I was clearly running out of endurance is evidence that an early Swipe-based chain does more damage over time than a build that does not take Swipe? Remember, endurance burn directly relates to how much damage you are putting out over time.


[ QUOTE ]

3. Stamina.

Useful, not nearly as mandatory as you say. I run a Claws/Regen with no Stamina and I run Assault and Tactics on top of Integration. The only thing that makes me run out of end is an AV. You simply do not need Stamina as a Claws/Regen. Yes, you can run out of end even less than the maybe 1 time per mission after 20 minutes of constant fighting that I do, but it's not mandatory. Perhaps if you are spamming Shockwave every 8 seconds on single targets, you're end use is bad enough that you might need Stamina.

[/ QUOTE ]

For whatever reason, my wife and I tend to burn more endurance than you. Granted, it's not that often that we burn endurance down below 25%, but it happens oh, roughly 2x per mission for us. Then there are the Sappers and other end-draining mobs of the world, from which a speedy recovery rate is useful if you don't want to be slowed down.

Yes, it might be the fact that we probably use Shockwave more often than you do? We like to use Shockwave for control and alpha mitigation, and it recharges every 8 seconds for us.

Again, I go back to my tenet that Endurance=DPS. (Yes, I know, it's not strictly "DPS", perhaps I should be more exacting and state it as "Endurance=Damage over time + Control &amp; Mitigation". But that's not nearly as catchy or easy to remember. .) The point is that the more endurance you burn, the more of an overall effect you are having. In any long attack chain, for example, you always prioritize your highest DPS attacks first, because you want the most front-loaded damage possible. But in a long fight, you also need to chain in your lower DPS attacks because your high DPS attacks are recharging. So... the more efficiently you can queue up your attacks in the best priority order, the fewer gaps you have and the more *overall* DPS you are putting out.

When you look at it this way, there's nothing wrong with my logic that "Endurance=DPS".


[ QUOTE ]
Things I sorta disagree with

1. Your "Endurance = DPS" golden rule

No, no it's not. I understand what you are saying, you like endurance efficiency. That's fine. You pay X amount of end to do Y amount of damage. You like to maximize that. Fine. But you don't seem understand why powers seem to you to be less efficient. You almost get it because you see that you have to hit about 3 people with Spin to be efficient(2.2 really). Shockwave doesn't suck, it's simply balanced as an AoE attack and that requires using it against a certain number of targets(2.5 really).

Also, DPS is damage per second. It's a pure measurement of the raw damage put out per second of attacking. So yes, while Swipe's end efficiency equals Focus and Slash, its DPS does not. It's in fact not even half the DPS of Slash or Focus. You do your readers a disservice by using terms incorrectly like this. Your message was that EPD is more important that DPS. Well, say that then. Don't say that DPS is all about endurance when it is not.

I like your message that end use is important, I agree. I just do not like the way you tried to get that message across. Using terms incorrectly is never okay, especially when your message itself is good, it's even worse then because it's more confusing. I'd like the message even more if you knew how to apply it to AoEs.


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See my previous comment. I think you're picking nits over a specific meaning to the term DPS. Try thinking of it this way: there's DPS for any specific attack, and then another thing entirely is the DPS for a specific attack chain. Think about it. Remember that no high-level attack chain is a simple 1-2-3-4 pattern. Instead, it's more like 1-2-3-4-2-4-3-1-4, etc. What is the overall DPS you have churned out at the end of a long 2-minute fight? How many gaps did you have in the attack chain? Your *endurance* bar is the best indicator of the relative DPS for a long attack chain, provided you always prioritize your highest (per-attack) DPS attacks first as soon as they're recharged.

Bottom line is this. If my end bar is farther to the left after a long fight (than it might otherwise have been), I've exerted more overall force in my favor. It's that simple. This is why everything you do is tied to endurance, with endurance being the limiting factor. It's also why a little sapper minion you didn't notice fast enough can end up getting you killed.

Think about it. Endurance burn is your only true objective benchmark of overall DPS. This is also why I say you can never have too much endurance, and why to me, Stamina is just as necessary as QR for a /Regen. /Regen scrappers are fortunate in that we get even *more* endurance to play with, so if we're going balls-to-the-wall, so to speak, we can exert more total force on a fight than the other Scrapper /secondaries can do. Again, this is not subjective opinion, it is pure logic based on math. Just because a Scrapper without both QR and Stamina can *feel* like they're doing fine does not mean they actually have the same potential for exerting force as a Scrapper with both QR and Stamina.

But again, fun versus efficiency is a real factor in any build, so if you think you'll have more fun by not taking Stamina and using that slot for a different power that is more fun for you, then by all means, do so!


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2. Swipe. This is only as a corollary to the last point. Because of your incorrect use of terms, you've equated the DPS of Swipe and Slash and Focus when as I point out, it's not nearly the same. I also don't agree with your slightly hyperbolic language when it comes to extolling the virtues of Swipe. You actually called Air Superiority 'slow'. Spin is slow. Shockwave is slow. Total Focus is slow. Air Superiority is a 4s recharge, which is faster than Slash, which wasn't called slow.

Also, you slightly overstate the dislike of Swipe. I and other long term Claws people have pretty much amended our position on Swipe to say that while isn't the best DPS attack, the animation is now cool enough and the difference really isn't that big a deal that it's a fine choice in place of Strike. It's not a better attack numbers-wise, but it is very nice looking. Basically, you can pick either Strike or Swipe, and then take the rest of the set minus Confront. At high levels, the two attacks are interchangeable since you'll be attempting to use the AoEs and other attacks. Swipe/Strike becomes a filler. So you choose between animation and numbers. That's all.

I also think you overstate the use of Swipe as a filler attack. You aren't just hanging by a thread with Strike and Slash until Focus. Strike, Slash, Follow Up and the use of any of Brawl, origin powers, Air Sup, or Spin makes a damn complete attack chain at low levels. Those levels go by so quickly anyway that people don't have to take another attack if they don't want. Swipe is not 100% must have.


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I used to think like this too, but a new guildmate (also new to the game) kept complaining how long it seemed to be taking to get to a level where they weren't standing around with their thumb up their rear end while mobs beat on them. It's a subjective thing, our memory of the past. To an old-timer who knows how to power level, sure you can get past level 20 pretty quick. You also have money to twink your char at every step with the best enhancements, which also makes a huge difference in your subjective experience (and memory).

So I decided to do it right and experience from level 1 up what it would be like with and without Swipe as an early choice. (Alternatives I tried through level 10 were Air Sup, Brawl, and Spin.). Trust me. The Swipe-based build make levels 1-10 whiz by compared to the others. Based on that early 1-10 elimination, I then took the Swipe build up to level 22 to see how it would perform. It pwned every step of the way, with *never* a gap in attack chains. So much so that at 16, I had endurance problems.

Remember, that Swipe can be used twice for every one time you can use Slash or Strike. If neither Slash nor Strike were ready yet, Swipe always was. It's simple math... you have 0 DPS during a chain gap. You have at least *some* DPS if you are making an attack during that gap. Therefore, the simple math is that you get the highest overall DPS for an attack chain if: 1) you have no gaps; something is always queued and ready to go instantly after the preceding attack finishes, and 2) you always prioritize the highest DPS attacks first.

Again, my endurance burn at 16 is the real acid test that proves my point about Swipe versus either Spin or Air Sup or Brawl during the early levels all the way up *past* Focus. Remember, when I got slowed down (ice foes, which are quite common at 16+), there were gaps even with Focus in my chain. Granted, when I wasn't slowed, I didn't need Swipe to fill gaps. But when I was slowed, Swipe was still used quite often.

Now, it's possible that after you pick up Focus you could respec right then and there to swap out Swipe for something else like Spin or Air Sup, but there's a problem isn't there? Namely, that you cannot respec until level 24 or thereabouts. Which is why I recommend waiting until you pick up Eviscerate to respec. If Spin turns out to be more useful than I remember (due to increased range), I might instead choose to respecing at 24 and just planning to swap Swipe for Spin and take Air Sup at 26. Or something along those lines.

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3. Your reasons for taking Regen.

There's nothing there that really says why Claws + Regen is good. It just says "Regen is good". This could be a DM/Regen guide and it'd say the same exact thing. Don't tell us why Regen is good, tell us why Regen is good for Claws. I also find it funny that you talk about how great Integration is for mez protection... and then you take Acrobatics. That's a pvp choice if anything. PvE, it's not a good idea precisely because Integration is so good. I know you treated Acrobatics as a throw away choice, but still, it looks kinda funny to see it after your review of Integration.

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In that section I clearly state that many secondaries are solid. I cite QR as my main number one reason for taking Regen for a Claws set, because a Claws set can burn through the endurance too fast if you are really optimizing your attack chains. Fitting QR into the build before level 20, without eating up a valuable early slot with the fairly useless Health, is priceless. As I've clearly stated, I had significant endurance problems as soon as I picked up Integration, and this was *not* a fuzzy recollection or supposition from memory, it was empirical experience with a maximum DPS attack chain on a test character.

Ergo, /Regen is the best secondary for a well-built Claws primary. All other aspects of /Regen are admittedly secondary *to Claws*, but since I was talking about /Regen I figured I'd highlight the other useful points.

Again, Claws is *fast*, faster than any other Scrapper primary. Sure the other primaries are good too, but for different reasons that sustained high-pressure DPS. BS, for example, shines for front-loaded spikes. But it doesn't eat endurance the way a Claws build can do.

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4. Damage Slots.

There are instances where that 3rd damage slot is more important than something else. A good example. A third damage SO in Focus or a 2nd recharge in IH? The priority lies with Focus because of the frequency of use and benefit over time. You will kill things faster and save end with more damage from Focus, which I pretty much use every time it's available. IH, on the other hand, I use maybe 2 times a night when I'm solo and only when the crap hits the fan in a team, which doesn't happen that often either, even with high level pick up teams.

I'm a big fan of slotting not by strict rules, but by what gives the most benefit. Sometimes that means recharges in Recon and DP, sometimes it's damage in Focus and Follow Up.

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I agree completely but am puzzled. I have Focus fully slotted with three Damage by level 23, which is looooong before I put a second Recharge into IH. This section sounds like it's trying to be a criticism, but in fact I'm slotting exactly with the same general guidelines you're espousing.

Granted, I *could* tweak the slotting of IH in particular, farming out those two level 29 slots to something earlier in the build such as one of my bread and butter attacks, or to heals in Reconstruction, but here is my logic on slotting IH the way I do... IH's base 650 second recharge is criminally ridiculous. If you're going to keep that power slotted with only one recharge for a long time, why even pick it up *at all* until you are ready and willing to slot it with 3 recharges as soon as possible to get it down to a more reasonable 330-second recharge?

Granted, you might not use IH very often at all, but when you do, it's the *best* "oh ****!" button in the /Regen set. So my preference is to grab IH as soon as it becomes available, and to slot it with 3 recharges ASAP after that to give me a good "oh ****!" button. By that level, you get surprised by a bad alpha strike or a bad add and you really appreciate having an "oh ****!" button. To me, that is *more* valuable than a little more damage in my attack chain that already pwns everything.


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Oh, wait, one last thing. A good thing to do is post your guide in the AT forum it's for and to get all this type of feedback before you post it in the guide section. You can't edit that first post forever and some people don't scroll far enough to get to other posts you might make with revisions.

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Yeah, I debated that, but it's simple enough to repost a "v2" of the guide and then to re-quote the guide to guides for Lighthouse. Meanwhile, most of the information is solid (IMO ) and useful even with a few rough edges. There hasn't been a new scrapper guide for Claws in forever, and half of what I see in the existing guides is really out of date and wrong.

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I can't see how you can consider Spin to barely damage foes; it does the same damage as Strike and more than Swipe, to as many foes as you can hit with it. Hitting 1 guy for 50 or 6 for 50 each, I know which I'd take. Add in the fact that Shockwave does the same damage again; in two attacks you can do more damage than hitting 6 guys with Strike and Swipe each. That is over simplified as you will use Follow Up, Slash and Focus as much as possible, but the AoE damage can really add up.

I used to not like Spin for the endurance cost, but Regen can handle that without much of an issue.

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On the Scrapper forum (where some good feedback has also been happening), one responder pointed out that Spin has a radius of 8 feet, not 5 feet. While not nearly as good as 12 or 15 feet, what 8 feet gives you is a little bit of AOE range beyond direct melee range.

As I said in the other thread, I'd written off Spin long ago, when I believe it did have a 5-foot range, for the reasons I've stated previously. Even though I went to City of Data recently to double-check what seemed like incorrect damage, buff, and recharge stats in the CoH/CoV Character Builder, I frankly didn't look close at the AOE numbers for Spin because I'd already written that one off long ago.

In light of this (to me) new data that the range might have been increased to 8 feet, I'm rolling up a newbie real quick to level 6 to do some range testing. With an 8-foot range it might be entirely possible to hit 3+ foes on a regular basis (while there are still multiple foes around). While I wouldn't see Spin as a replacement for Swipe in the early levels, I *could* see Spin as a possibly more useful alternative to Eviscerate if you can consistently hit 3+ foes when there are still 3+ foes around. The 5-foot range on Eviscerate is woeful at best, which is why I consider it a single-target attack despite it's 90-degree cone angle.

The arguments for Spin posted so far are good ones and illustrate why some people highly value Spin. In this regard, I don't think there is only one "right" answer, which is another reason that Claws is a strong set--you have some flexibility in your power choices and can still be effective.

Still, the types of arguments I make against Spin are also good ones. It's important to realize that 3-5 barely-damaged foes are still alive and hitting you. Spin draws *more* aggro on you that otherwise might be directed at other members of the team. This can be good in some cases (protecting squishies), but can be bad in other cases (scrappers are *not* tanks and can go down like a sack of potatoes if they garner too much alpha strike).

Another way of looking at it is that if you are focusing on fast single-target damage, you are removing individual sources of damage *faster* than if you focus on minimal AOE damage. If I can eliminate 2 out of 6 foes quickly, I've effectively cut down on the total incoming damage to myself and the team by 33%. If I were to use Spin instead and as a result knock out only 1 of those 6 foes in the same span of time, I've cut down on the total incoming damage by only 17%.

If you consider those example numbers carefully, you'll see that single-target damage is a more effective mitigator of the "alpha strike" than AOE damage. Yes, focusing on AOE damage, especially in a large team, will ultimately help the entire group be killed faster, but the trade-off is that in the early stages of the fight you are not mitigating the heavy alpha strike, putting yourself and any squishy teamate more at risk.

Plus, if scrappers were really all that concerned about protecting squishies, more of them would take the taunt power. LOL how many scrappers do you know that actually took Confront or its equivalent in the other powersets? We're *not* tanks. Our role is not to protect the squishies but to take out as many targets as fast as possible. We're the folks chasing down every minion and 1- or 2-hitting them in rapid succession to more quickly mitigate the total incoming damage to the team. In this light, I feel that focusing on single-target attacks is simply more effective.

But "more effective" is only one dimension of game play. It's satisfying to see a Spin hit 4-5-6 foes and all those pretty orange numbers light up. YMMV.

---------------

On a different tack, some feedback has argued that Acrobatics is worthless when you already have Integration. I'm not going to argue that point other than I've seen some contradictory info about whether Acrobatics stacks or not. And that after 32 I stopped caring to a degree, LOL, because my build was 99% complete and fully functioning. I don't really like *any* of the final pools for 41-50.

I would love it if folks who feel they have the real lowdown would suggest stronger alternatives to my level 35 and 38 power choices, and even suggest level 41-50 power choices that would best complement this type of build and combat approach.

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This thread is for posting Guide or FAQ links for Scrappers. Please create your guides in the "Player Guides" forum (since posts in that section do not roll off) and link the thread here. Also, do not post your guide in this thread - only the link to your guide. Here are a few to get you started from the Guide to Guides.

Failing any clear identifier from the poster, I will go by the original post date vs. Issue releases (I1: 6/30/04, I2: 9/17/04, I3: 1/5/05, I4: 5/5/05, I5: 9/1/05, I6: 10/28/05) - e.g., if it was posted in March/05, it is an I3 Guide.

Guides appearing here were gleaned from links posted in one of the "Guide to Guides" threads (the Scrapper GtG or the GtG threads in the "Player Guides" forum). I cannot sift through the hundreds of individual threads to find a posting, so be sure to 1) place your guide in the "Player Guides" forum, nowhere else and 2) post a link to it in a "Guide to Guides" thread!

SCRAPPER

** GENERAL
Scrapper Slotting Basics(DistantDeath)
Scrapper APP's: A Brief Overview (Screwloose) [I4]
Three Tested Builds (TheConfessor) [I1]

** BROAD SWORD
EvilGeko's I8 BS/Regen Guide: Serve, Protect, Kill(Evil Geko)
EvilGeko's I7 BS/Regen Guide: Killin Villains!(EvilGeko)
Stormbringer-BS/DA Scrapper Guide I6(Dracomicon)
The Hunter/Gatherer, an I6 BS/INV scrapper guide (Yomo_Kimyata) [I6]
Broad Sword/Regeneration Guide: STILL KILLIN' (EvilGeko) [I5]
Broad Sword/Dark Armor Guide V2.5 (Nai__) [I3]
Casual Broad Sword/Regeneration Build V2 (Nunix) [I3]

** CLAWS
Claws analysis for I8--and i8 Claws/Regen build(Shaktiboi) [I8]
Claws/SR Guide for I7(nebber)
Poison Bloom's guide to Claws/Super Reflexes(Madam_Enigma)
Tiger's Tale:Reflections of a Lv. 50 Claws/SRer(DarZindel)
Phire's I5 Claws/Regen Guide To Survival Success (Phire666) [I6]
Claws/Invulnerability Guide (Battle_Claw) [I5]
Guide to Claws DPS (Edict) [I3]
Issue 3 Post-Integration Claws/Regeneration Scrapper Guide (Serrated_Edge) [I3]
Claws/Regeneration Pre-35 Guide (Paradoxic) [I2]
Yet Another Claws Guide (Bloodwill) [I2]
Claws Guide (HaLdAvId) [I1]

** DARK MELEE
The DM/DA Bible(The_Gamemaster)
A Comprehensive guide to PVE DM/Regen Issue 8(Cinderblock)
Dark_Mike's I7 Dark Melee/Regen Guide(Dark_Mike0
Shadow Brawlers Guide to Dark Melee/Super Reflexes (DeNMaN) [I3]
Comprehensive Guide to Dark Melee/Invulnerability V3.0 (Leprechauna) [I3]
The Complete Guide to Dark Melee/Regeneration (Alyssa) [I3]
Dark Melee/Dark Armor Scrap-Controller V2 (MasterHung) [I2]
Dark Melee/Dark Armor FAQ V1.0 (SoulGrind) [I1]

** KATANA
Katana/Regen Guide-Witty Title Here (Eran_Rist)
Katana/Regen Post Issue 6 (PDF29TAG) [I6]
Rock's Katana/SR ED Compliant Guide (BloodPython) [I6]
Divine Avalanche Scrapper Guide, Version 2.0 (Ebon_Wrath) [I6]
Building and Playing the Katana/Regeneration Scrapper (Amberyl) [I4]
The Paradoxe: A Flying Katana/Invulnerability Scrapper Guide 1.2 (Paradoxe) [I4]
Katana/Regeneration Guide for Issue 2 (StoneTemplePilot) [I2]
Grey Wind's Guide to the Offensive Katana/Super Reflexes Scrapper (Grey_Wind) [I2]
Katana/Dark Armor - A Guide (Guardian_Gaz) [I2]

** MARTIAL ARTS
Martial Arts - A Comprehensive Guide (Tulzar) [I6]
Martial Arts/Super Reflexes - The Advanced Guide (tpull) [I6]
Guide to Martial Arts/Dark Armor (Chick) [I3]
Gideon Fontaine's "Togglelude" Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Build (Gideon_F) [I3]
Martial Arts - Extensive Regeneration/Power Pool Guide V3.1 (RisingPhoenix) [I3]
Satori's Master of Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Guide (Kyx2000) [I1]

** SPINES
Thoughts of a level 50 Spines Scrapper I1 to I7(Screwloose)
Ian's Guide to the AoE Scrapper(Spine/Dark)(milk_weasel)
Confessions of a Spines/Dark Scrapper(forest60)(I7)
Poison Massacre: A Spines/Regen Guide for i7(Shadow_Poison)
Bostic's Spines/Regeneration I5 Respec Build Guide (Jentia_Argool) [I5]
A Spines/SR Guide (vI6.1) by Funky Pink (Funky_Pink) [I6]
Respect Example: Warcupine - Spines/Regeneration/Body Mastery (Plasma_Welder) [I4]
How To Build Spines/Regeneration V3.0 with I4 Powers (_Havok_) [I4]
Thoughts of a Level 50 Spines Scrapper (Screwloose) [I3]
Spines/Dark Armor: The Dust Bunny's AoE Guide (Romance) [I2]
7th's Invincible Spines Guide (7th) [I2]

** SECONDARIES
Scrapper Secondary Information for Issue 7(BuffyASummers)
Dark Armor Overview for Scrappers(Issue 8)(Screwloose)
Regeneration - A Comprehensive Scrapper Guide (Tulzar) [I6]
Amauros' Guide to SR Scrappers (and stalkers) 3.5 (Amauro) [I6]
Dark Armor Overview for Issue 5 (Screwloose) [I5]
How to Slot Regeneration for I5 (Screwloose) [I5]
A Guide To Super Reflexes (MedievalMayhem) [I4]
Immortal-Nite's Regeneration Rates Guide - Issue 4 (ImmortalNight) [I4]
The Dark Armor Numbers Guide: (Issue 3) (Romance) [I3]
Dark Armor: Scary Scraptroller Template (Fear) (GhostCaT) [I3]
City of Heroes Regeneration FAQ (Compiled by HeroicFedifensor) [I2]
Regeneration and Power Pool Guide V3.0 (HaLdAvId) [I2]

[/ QUOTE ]

Note: as early feedback rolls in, I'll be making some minor edits while I still have edit privs to this post.

Many of the Claws-based scrapper guides are now out of date. One of the most popular Hero planners (SherkSilver's CoH/CoV Character Builder) has some incorrect stats regarding some Claws attacks, which can be misleading. There is also some "conventional wisdom" prevalent on the Scrapper forums that is flatly incorrect and does a disservice to newbie scrappers who are considering Claws for their primary.

This guide is an analysis of the Claws primary that is up to date as of I8. I have regularly partnered with a Claws/Regen scrapper since retail launch, and seen what has worked well and poorly for her throughout multiple respecs and power/ED changes. I have also recently rolled up a Claws/Regen scrapper of my own and implemented/tested the concepts I'll be setting forth in this guide. It's important to note, however, that what I'm going to say about Claws is true regardless of your scrapper secondary.


Why Claws over any other Scrapper primary?

Claws is best-suited for PvE and is one of the strongest PvE primaries. The main reasons to choose Claws are:

<ul type="square">[*]The fastest "feel" in terms of fight mechanics. If you choose the right mix of powers, you will never be standing around waiting for a power to recharge while you are getting pounded. Instead, you will constantly rolling from one attack to the next without any gaps, and all of your attacks are fast.[*]One of the more visually interesting sets of attack animations. It's very visceral. You "feel" like Wolverine. And did I mention how fast it plays?[*]You never have a boring, predictable 4- or 5-attack chain sequence. You must be aware of your skillbar and which attacks are almost recharged so that you can queue them up effectively. You will not fall asleep playing Claws.[*]The Claws version of "Build Up" (called Follow Up)is a quick-firing, quick-recharging attack in and of itself. Not only does this mean no attack-chain gap while you're triggering your build-up, but because you can get it to recharge so quickly, you can keep the damage/accuracy buff effect constant throughout an entire long fight. Even if your Follow Up misses here and there, you only go for about 9 seconds without the buff being in effect. Granted, the damage/accuracy buff is much less than what Build Up gives you, but that's more than compensated for by the sheer length of time that this buff effectively lasts.[*]Claws is one of the only two scrapper primaries that has a ranged attack (Focus). Best of all, this fast-recharging and high-damage attack does knock-down and it does *not* immobilize the target like Spines' Impale does. This is important because pulling singles from a difficult group is an important skill for a scrapper, because we tend to be vulnerable to alpha strikes. Also, the knockdown is priceless for mitigating the incoming damage from tough Lieuts and Bosses.[*]Claws has two knockdown attacks in the set. We've already discussed Focus, but the other is Shockwave, which is underrated by many players because of its low damage-per-endurance efficiency. However, Shockwave is priceless at higher levels (35+) because it is a 90-degree cone with a 30-foot range that has a very strong knockdown quotient. You don't use this power for damage, you use it for crowd control and mitigating a tough alpha strike. You don't slot it for damage, but instead you slot it for recharge and accuracy so that you can reuse it every 7 seconds.[/list]

Why *NOT* Claws?

Claws is great for PvE, but is not the best-suited primary for PvP. Why? Because PvP is all about the alpha strike. Whomever does the most front-loaded damage generally wins, all other factors being equal. Claws is not a front-loaded damage set, but instead is a constant DPS set. Once you begin your attack, you are an implacable force and you never slow down. But you don't have a big alpha strike capability like, for example, the Broadsword primary does.

One of Claws' strengths for PvE--it's knockback capabilities--is also a detriment in many players' opinions. Why? Because when a foe is knocked-back, they are moved out of AOE damage effects and every other meleer on the team has to chase after the knocked-down foe. When you're chasing after a foe, you're not doing damage, and pretty much everyone realizes that for a scrapper, your offense is your best defense.

I think this concern about knockback has merit if you plan to team often with other people, or you plan to partner often with a player whose build relies heavily on AOE damage. When I played my fire blaster alongside my wife's Claws/Regen scrapper, for example, she would often knock one mob (or an entire group) back just when I was lining up to spray my cone damage, for example, which was admittedly frustrating for me. I had to learn her attack rhythms to be able to guess when to best fire off my various AOE attacks.

If, however, you are primarily a solo artist (and Scrappers are the *best* solo artists on the Hero side, IMO), or if you regularly partner with another player who doesn't rely on AOE too much, then Claws is the best PvE primary if you like fast, entertaining gameplay.

If you enjoy playing a more controller-ish type of game, with holds and immobilizes, then again, Claws is probably not for you and there are better Scrapper primaries for you. But in my opinion, Scrappers in general are meant to be pure offense, for whom the maxim "the best defense is a good offense" truly applies. The consistent DPS and gapless attack chains, coupled with two excellent knockback powers for mitigation of bosses and alpha strikes, goes a *long* way towards improving your survivability.


Analysis of the powers

I'm going to present my analysis of the powers in the set in an unconventional way. Rather than a power-by-power breakdown and rating, I'm going to look at the synergistic groupings of powers in the set.


The must-haves and the worthless powers

The first important grouping is to determine the powers that are "must-haves" versus the powers you can safely skip without regret. Here's where I'm going to drop one bombshell that goes against the "conventional wisdom" you'll see repeated over and over on the Scrapper forum when people ask for help with their Claws/x scrapper build.

<ul type="square">[*]MUST-HAVE: Swipe (until level 26), Strike, Slash, Follow-up, Focus, Shockwave[*]OPTIONAL: Eviscerate[*]SKIP: Spin, Confront[/list]
Now let me explain the two choices in this list that I expect will be controversial: Swipe and Spin. Most people think Swipe is worthless, and many people like Spin.

First let's discuss Swipe, about which pretty much everyone universally says "skip it". You have to remember that most of the experienced players listing builds are already in their high levels or at max level. Admittedly, Swipe is not of much use when you're 26+. However, I feel *strongly* that Swipe is absolutely priceless until at least after you pick up Focus, and even then it is still worth having until you pick up Eviscerate. If you choose not to pick up Eviscerate, then Swipe remains still useful even in the high levels. (Of course, if you do pick up Eviscerate, then I would strongly recommend respeccing afterward to trade Swipe for Air Superiority to give you an additional knockdown power for boss control.)

So I'd like you to fix in your mind the relationship between Eviscerate and Swipe. Think of Eviscerate as the high-level version of Swipe. Remember this when planning your builds and respecs. One or the other is *needed* to provide a smooth, gapless attack chain for maximum DPS pressure.

Some might argue that after you pick up Focus at 18 you essentially have a gapless attack chain without needing Swipe any more. But these folks would be wrong, because they're forgetting how many different mobs have powers that slow your attack rate. Granted, when you are not slowed, you can ignore the Swipe sitting on your hotbar. But the minute you are slowed, Swipe becomes the gap-filler in your attack chain.

The second big fallacy regarding swipe is that its damage efficiency is inferior to the rest of the set. This is *not* true. In terms of endurance efficiency (damage per point of endurance), the following attacks are all EQUAL: Strike, Swipe, Slash, Focus. (If you don't believe me, look up the relevant data on City of Data and do the math for yourself.) Yes, it's true that Swipe does *less* damage than Strike, Slash, or Focus and therefore it's easy to arrive at the flawed conclusion that it somehow lowers your DPS. But what's wrong with this reasoning is the fact that without Swipe, you will have *gaps* in your attack chain before level 18. And when a gap happens, where you're doing nothing while waiting for some skill to recharge, you are putting out exactly 0 DPS. Therefore, using Swipe to fill that gap is greater than 0 DPS and therefore Swipe is contributing to a greater overall DPS. It's really that simple.

You can trust me on this point, because I recently verified it during the double exp weekend by rolling up a newbie Claws/Regen scrapper for testing and leveled her from 1 to 22 while periodically hopping over to the Test server to try out alternatives to Swipe. Seriously, your damage output is *insane* with Swipe, Strike, and Slash as your bread and butter damage attacks through level 18 or 20 (depending on when you actually pick up Focus--more on that later.) If, on the other hand, you are trying to limp by with only Strike and Slash, or if you pick up a slower-recharging attack like Air Superiority instead of Swipe, you will have gaps in your attack chain and you will not put out nearly as much DPS. The difference is noticeable, both in how fast you mow down entire groups and in how much damage you take doing so.

Now let's talk about my other controversial choice: Spin. I feel Spin is totally worthless compared to the other powers in the set. The reason is quite simple. It's an AOE attack which is supposedly one of the big advantages of Claws. ("Claws is one of the only two AOE scrapper sets--therefore you're stupid if you don't take all the AOE powers.")

The problem with Spin is that its AOE radius is only 5 meters. That means it will hit *only* the mobs in direct melee range, relative to yourself. Due to AI changes over the years, however, it's extremely rare to get more than 2 mobs in melee range of yourself. Spin needs to hit at least 3 mobs to be as endurance-efficient as Strike, Swipe, Slash, and Focus. (Again, look at City of Data and do the math for yourself if you don't believe this simple fact.) Since you'll rarely hit 3 or more mobs at once with Spin, therefore, Swipe is better endurance efficiency. It's that simple. Plus, people also forget that those other mobs you hit besides your primary target are regenning health after they take the incidental AOE damage, so really, the break-even range for Spin might be needing to hit 4 mobs instead of only 3.


The Golden Rule: Endurance = DPS

So my comments about the worthlessness of Spin lead into this section. I'd like you to fix in your mind the equation that "Endurance = DPS". What I mean by this is that if you are always queuing up your hardest-hitting attacks first in a gapless chain, AND if those hardest-hitting attacks are the most endurance-efficient as possible, then you are putting out the most DPS of which you're capable. The key principle here is that you cannot just look at the raw orange damage numbers; you must also examine the endurance cost of your attacks.

Also essential to this concept is that in a long fight, you can come close to burning out all of your endurance, so getting the most bang for the buck with every point of endurance spent is crucial to *sustained* DPS throughout the fight. (As an aside, this is one reason that Regen is so useful as a PvE secondary--Quick Recovery is like having a second, supercharged version of Stamina in your build.)

Using the baseline damage and endurance numbers for the various Claws attacks as listed on City of Data, here's the relative endurance-efficiency of the Claws attacks. The numbers are expressed in points of damage per point of endurance (DPE):

<ul type="square">[*]15.04 DPE: Swipe, Strike, Slash, Focus[*]12.03 DPE: Eviscerate[*]6.84 DPE: Spin[*]6.42 DPE: Follow Up[*]5.95 DPE: Shockwave[/list]
As you can see, for every point of endurance burned, you are getting the most bang for your buck from Swipe, Strike, Slash, and Focus, with Eviscerate coming in as a close second. You can see that Spin's DPE is much lower, which is why you need to hit at least 3 foes with it to even come close to the DPE of Swipe, Strike, Slash, and Focus.

On the face of these numbers, it looks like Follow Up and Shockwave are even worse attacks than Spin, but the strength in FU and Shockwave lies not in their damage, but in their utility effects. (This is why I don't recommend slotting either attack for much damage, instead preferring to slot them for a fast recharge.)

As a final thought for this particular section, I cannot stress enough the importance of taking Stamina in your build. Furthermore, I'll go so far as to say the single most compelling reason to take /Regen as the optimal secondary for Claws lies in the value of Quick Recovery. Why? If you are truly cranking out the DPS with a gapless attack chain, even if you are using the most DPE-efficient attacks you will still burn through all your endurance in no time unless you have Stamina speeding up your recovery rate. And frankly, even Stamina alone is *not* enough to compensate for the rate you can eat up endurance with a gapless Claws attack chain. Nor is Quick Recovery alone enough for a really long fight. By the time you hit 35+, you will need both Stamina and Quick Recovery unless you want to pop a lot of blues during battle.

The people who say "you don't need Stamina" or "you don't need Quick Recovery" are people who aren't maximizing their DPS. I'll wager that the people who say stuff like this have many long gaps in their attack chains, or else their inspiration tray is largely devoted to blue candy.


Single-target chains versus AOE attacks

Yes, it can be argued that Claws is an AOE set second only to Spines. However, let's examine that argument closely. Spin is worthless for reasons already stated. Shockwave is a good 90-degree cone with a 30-yard range so that's good, but the DPE efficiency is rather low. Eviscerate has good DPE efficiency and high damage, but has only a 5-foot (melee) range, so despite it's 90-degree cone, I'd class Eviscerate as a single-target attack rather than as an AOE attack.

When you look at it this way, Claws really can't come close to Spines for AOE damage. So I'd like you to stop thinking of Claws as any kind of AOE set. Instead, think of Claws as an amazingly strong single-target damage set with a very good buff, a great pulling power, and one extremely strong mitigation power for alpha strikes (Shockwave). I'd classify the attacks in Claws in this manner:

<ul type="square">[*]Single-target: Swipe/Eviserate, Strike, Slash, Focus[*]Buff (constant): Follow Up[*]Control/Mitigation: Shockwave and Focus[*]Pulling: Focus[/list]
Notice that Focus does triple-duty as one of your strongest single-target attacks, a great pulling attack, and as one of your control/mitigation attacks. And Shockwave is just amazingly valuable as a mitigation against alpha strikes and the early stages of chewing through a big group (provided you slot it up for a fast recharge).

Also key here is the 4-part meat-and-potatoes damage chain of Swipe/Eviscerate, Strike, Slash, and Focus. (With Follow-up thrown in at every opportunity to provide a constant accuracy and damage buff to all 4 of those attacks.) You must have ALL 4 of these attacks at any given point in your development to provide a gapless attack chain. Especially in the levels below 26 (when you can pick up Eviscerate), Swipe is *critical* to maintaining a gapless attack chain for the highest DPS.


What to replace Swipe with after you pick up Eviscerate?

Assuming you do pick up Eviscerate (which I recommend doing), what is the best power to replace Swipe with? I vote strongly for Air Superiority. Why? Because if you think Focus is great for boss control, you should see Focus and Air Superiority together. The DPE of Air Sup is the same as for Strike, Slash, etc. (15.04 DPE), so not only are you getting amazing knockdown utility, but it's contributing strongly to your DPS as well.

The only drawback to using Air Sup in a Claws build is the redraw time when you switch back and forth between Air Sup and your Claws attacks. Therefore, I don't tend to use Air Sup except when it's really needed, which is against tough bosses who could otherwise really hurt me. In that case, I'll gladly trade the slight slowdown in DPS for the fact that between Focus and Air Sup (and maybe even the occasional Shockwave) I can keep a boss on his back most of the time. If you don't want to "waste" Shockwaves on a boss, you can add an SO recharge to Air Sup and either that or Focus will always be available to knock him down/back again.


What's the best secondary for Claws?

Many of the Scrapper secondaries are good and solid. That said, I'll recommend /Regen every time as the perfect matchup for Claws. Why?
<ul type="square">[*]Quick Recovery is priceless to a high-DPS scrapper. If your attack chains are gapless, you will burn the endurance during a long fight faster than Stamina alone can keep up with. As a Claws scrapper, you'll never regret taking both Quick Recovery and Stamina. Sure, you won't notice the difference in short fights, but you'll really be thankful during a long fight and against tough bosses that take a long time to kill.[*]The status protection from Integration is just all-around awesome. Nothing is more frustrating than being sleeped, stunned, disoriented, or knocked back. Integration is just priceless if you enjoy laughing at most mobs that make other meleers (or any archetype, really) very nervous. Seriously, you'll laugh in their faces as you shred Carnie Strongmen and Illusionists, just as one example.[*]You have only one toggle: Integration. This means less endurance drain and therefore longer sustained high DPS, and it means fewer toggles to deal with turning on again when dropped by a foe. Plus, the benefit that Integration provides isn't a critical life-or-death benefit during the periods you might fumble around getting it toggled on again, unlike some other toggles in the scrapper secondaries.[*]Reconstruction is among the best scrapper self-heals, mainly because you can get it to recharge extremely fast.[*]Dull Pain is excellent for buffering yourself against the dreaded alpha strike, which is the bane of all scrappers. Don't laugh at an extra 500-700 HP going into a big alpha strike. Even with Shockwave helping to mitigate the incoming damage before you shred several minions or a strategic target like a Sapper, you'll be glad for the extra HP.[/list]
You'll notice I didn't even mention Fast Healing, or Instant Healing, or Resilience, all of which are useful powers from the /Regen secondary. They're nice and useful, but nothing stellar. Your survivability doesn't really come from being able to heal yourself or from damage resistance, but instead from your ability to dish out the constant DPS that never flags, coupled with some excellent knockback/knockdown abilities.

Instant Healing, in particular, used to be *the* reason to take /Regen, but of course that was overpowered and long since nerfed into the ground. To the point that it's now considered an optional power by many folks. Despite this nerfing of Regen, it's *still* the strongest secondary for Claws, in my opinion, for the reasons stated.


So what about a recommended build already?

Here ya go. Recently tested the early portions (level 1-22) during the double exp weekend. Tweaked and honed to scale back nicely when you are exemplared, and most importantly, it's fast and furious right from the get-go. You'll want to respec at 26 to trade Swipe for Air Superiority, which is an extremely simple respec because you just move Strike to level 1 and take Air Sup at level 6 instead, and you can use exactly the same slots and enhancements in Air Sup that you used for Swipe. So you won't have to hassle with reslotting and buying different enhancements, etc.

Be aware, though, that after you respec and swap out Swipe for Air Sup, you won't scale back nearly as nicely when exemplared. Your DPS below level 26 won't be nearly as good as when you had Swipe. If you plan to exemplar a lot (guild support, partner/friend with alt-itis, etc.), then you might want to consider keeping Swipe even past level 26.

Again, the slotting especially through level 22 was honed and tested each step of the way with variations tried out on the test server. The listed slotting is just uber through 22. After 22 it's more based on my common sense and recollection of my own scrapper's experience through the 20s and 30s, watching my wife's scrapper through her lifetime, and some educated "if I'd known then what I know now..." thoughts. It's quite possible that somebody will be able to point out valid refinements of my slotting scheme from 22 onwards.

Finally, consider the Resilience at 35 and the Acrobatics at level 38 completely optional and replaceable with something else you like better. Me? I hate being knocked back so it works for me despite the fact that Integration stops most knockbacks anyway. As for Resilience, a little more protection against disorient never hurts. Really, though, by 32 I didn't care much anymore because there were no more "must-haves" and my build was running at peak efficiency without any faults to shore up.

Another thing that some folks might object to is the fact that many of my attacks are not slotted with their 3rd damage enhancement until late in the build. Until you hit the mid-30s, most of your attacks have only 2 damage enhancers. Believe me, you'll never miss the 3rd damage enhancer. Even with only two damage TOs or DOs or SOs, you're still a freakin' cuisinart every step of the way. The reason I postpone the 3rd damage slot on most of my attacks is to be able to flesh out the important support powers in a timely fashion. You absolutely *need* the 3 End Mods in Quick Recovery ASAP. You really really really want the 3 recharges in Reconstruction, Dull Pain, and Instant Healing as soon as feasible after you pick them up. You really want the 3 heals in Integration as soon as you pick it up.

Some might also argue that 2 accuracies per attack is overslotting for accuracy because of the accuracy buff from Follow Up. I'll point out, however, that the 20% buff listed in CoH/CoV Character Builder is *wrong*, and that the buff is really only 10% (per City of Data). A mere 10% accuracy buff does not make up for the loss of an accuracy SO.

Regarding travel powers and the fitness pool, many folks prefer Hurdle over Swift, but I'll point out that with Combat Jumping and Swift, you get all the battle and street-roving mobility you need. Combat Jumping is superior to Hurdle in every respect. So it's like being able to take both Swift and Hurdle, with a bonus to your defense on top of it. Plus, Super Jump is just the most fun travel power besides being one of the fastest. Edit: one person gave feedback that Combat Jumping + Swift + Hurdle *instead* of Health gives even better combat mobility. Frankly, I was stuck "inside the box" on the Fitness pool myself and it never occurred to me to take Swift, Hurdle, and Stamina and not bother with Health. Especially considering my slotting choices (which leave Health 1-slotted), this seems like a much better option. So I'd recommend where you see Health in my build, consider taking Hurdle instead.

The final thing I might expect some people to argue with is my choice to slot both Follow Up and Shockwave with recharge and little to no damage. During levels 1-21, I recommend 2 accuracy and 2 recharge in Follow Up. When you can get SOs at level 22, switch to 1 accuracy, 1 recharge, and one damage. Why? To maintain a roughly 8-9 second recharge time on Follow Up, so that you can maintain the buff constantly throughout a long fight. Note that slotting 2 SO recharges in FU doesn't buy that much because it only drops the recharge tome to 7 seconds. A 1- to 1.5 second theoretical stacking of the buff doesn't really equate to much in real world conditions. All you need is a recharge rate that is sufficiently shorter than 10 seconds so that you can keep the buff constant.

As for Shockwave slotting, again I'll reiterate that its DPE efficiency is utter poo, and it's only real value lies in control and mitigation of alpha strikes from a big group. It's MUCH more valuable to be able to fire off a Shockwave every 8 seconds early in a big fight than to do a little damage with it but only be able to fire it off every 12 seconds. Just don't waste slots on damage for Shockwave unless you've got nothing else that can use the slots more.

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Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
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Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Claws
Secondary: Regeneration
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01) --&gt; Swipe==&gt; Acc(1)Acc(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(13)Dmg(36)
01) --&gt; Fast Healing==&gt; Heal(1)Heal(39)Heal(39)
02) --&gt; Slash==&gt; Acc(2)Acc(3)Dmg(11)Dmg(15)Dmg(34)
04) --&gt; Reconstruction==&gt; Rechg(4)Rechg(5)Rechg(7)Heal(31)Heal(33)Heal(33)
06) --&gt; Strike==&gt; Acc(6)Acc(7)Dmg(9)Dmg(13)Dmg(36)
08) --&gt; Follow Up==&gt; Acc(8)Acc(9)Rechg(11)Rechg(15)
10) --&gt; Swift==&gt; Run(10)
12) --&gt; Combat Jumping==&gt; Jump(12)
14) --&gt; Super Jump==&gt; Jump(14)
16) --&gt; Integration==&gt; Heal(16)Heal(17)Heal(17)
18) --&gt; Quick Recovery==&gt; EndMod(18)EndMod(19)EndMod(19)
20) --&gt; Focus==&gt; Acc(20)Acc(21)Dmg(21)Dmg(23)Dmg(23)
22) --&gt; Dull Pain==&gt; Rechg(22)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)Heal(40)Heal(40)Heal(40)
24) --&gt; Health==&gt; Heal(24)
26) --&gt; Eviscerate==&gt; Acc(26)Acc(27)Dmg(27)Dmg(31)Dmg(31)
28) --&gt; Instant Healing==&gt; Rechg(28)Rechg(29)Rechg(29)Heal(36)Heal(37)Heal(37)
30) --&gt; Stamina==&gt; EndMod(30)EndMod(37)EndMod(39)
32) --&gt; Shockwave==&gt; Acc(32)Acc(33)Rechg(34)Rechg(34)
35) --&gt; Resilience==&gt; DmgRes(35)
38) --&gt; Acrobatics==&gt; EndRdx(38)
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01) --&gt; Sprint==&gt; Empty(1)
01) --&gt; Brawl==&gt; Empty(1)
01) --&gt; Critical Hit==&gt; Empty(1)
02) --&gt; Rest==&gt; Empty(2)
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