Werner

It appears that I'm in the minority of the posters, but I don't like the idea of -resist or -defense or DoT or a berserk fury that builds or anything else that builds up over time. I think what distinguishes Broad Sword right now, and only barely, is that it had good burst damage. I don't mean good damage AFTER five or ten or fifteen seconds, I mean hit Build Up, hit someone with Head Splitter and Disembowel, and see some huge orange numbers. Replacing Build Up with an effect that actually has to build up over time makes Broad Sword LESS of a burst damage set, not more, even if its damage peaks higher than Katana's before dropping back down again. Now it seems to have NO advantage. Its slowly building build up keeps it from doing as much damage as Katana in short fights, and Katana's superior DPS keeps it ahead in long fights. Perhaps there's some tail end of medium-length fights where Broad Sword might be slightly ahead, but *yawn*, boring. I mean woo, I get to do slightly better damage during the clean up phase of a fight, when the Tanker has already decided everyone is OK and is running to get control of the next group.

If we're going to have a damage effect that changes over time, I'd want it going in the opposite direction, with monstrous damage from the first hit decaying over time. THAT would distinguish it from every other Build Up or Fury effect, and keep the set what it already is - a burst damage, smashy set. Basically, I want it to slap Katana around for ten seconds, and then for Katana's Superior DPS to pull ahead maybe around twenty seconds. For short fights or wiping out a critical target, you want Broad Sword. For long fights, you want Katana.

Now, given that the DPS is already fairly close, for them to pull even at around the 20 second mark doesn't leave much room for a super Build Up effect. I'm even OK with them nerfing attack DPA to give us something exceptional on the burst damage front.

243% regeneration just isn't going to cut it. I think some people handle this with, say, a Claws/Super Reflexes with 350% or so regeneration, but Claws has a lot more active mitigation I think. Basically, you need Aid Self, or you need Rebirth. You don't do something like this with a "mere" soft-capped Scrapper. +4x8 isn't supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be hard.

There's probably plenty that deserves to be looked at before Broad Sword. But this IS the Scrapper forum, where we tend to discuss Scrapper issues. Broad Sword, while a minor issue at best, is an issue for Scrappers, and I see no reason to ignore it on the Scrapper forum.

I agree that Broad Sword could use a minor buff. I don't have any particular opinion on the nature of that buff, but something that slightly distinguishes it from Katana instead of making it an even more exact clone might be nice. It sounds like that's what you were after. I can see the call for something more ambitious, though. A more ambitious change would have to be done carefully, though, or next we'll be poining out how Katana sucks compared to Broad Sword. They're already pretty close.

Not bad. You're within one purple of the soft cap on ranged and AoE, so you have soft cap on demand. Recharge isn't amazing, but it's decent. You have the Theft of Essence proc, which is pretty essential. I'd want more knockback protection, and on a Scrapper with this much mitigation, you may find yourself taking more damage from Oppressive Gloom than it's preventing, which is why I prefer Cloak of Fear on Katana/Dark. I'd be worried about endurance, though, and Cloak of Fear would only make it worse.

As a point of comparison, below is a "cheap" soft cap build by Ramia Angriffe with a few modifications by Iggy Kamakaze. It gives up recharge and a mez aura, though, making it less of a Dark Armor and more of a something else.

Something to consider would be something about halfway in between and taking advantage of incarnate powers. Use Barrier to soft cap when you really need it, and settle for 40% ranged and AoE. It's those last 5% that are really difficult to pull off, and are also rarely needed with Katana. That should free up a lot of the room in the build for Hasten and other goodies like you have in your build, and hopefully for Cloak of Fear. Then to deal with the endurance problems, pick up Cardiac Core, which will also boost your resistance a non-negligible amount.

Yeah, I think they'll actually be quite close in the long run, but I'd guess that the Claws/Super Reflexes will do slightly better damage and the Katana/Willpower will be slightly more survivable. I'm really not sure, though, as it's been forever since I've worried about what SOs are capable of, so don't consider me an expert. You CAN soft cap Super Reflexes with SOs, but I think it would leave you with low recharge and no heal, which might be a worse build overall than just having good defense, Hasten, Aid Self, and a bunch of attacks to spam. I'm really not sure. Katana/Willpower is pretty much guaranteed to be solid with any sort of decent build. The only trick would be hitting 45% lethal and melee defense, but it shouldn't be a hard trick.

Both should be fun. I'd actually think of the Katana/Willpower as blooming sooner than the Claws/Super Reflexes, so if you're loving the Claws more at this point, I'd personally just keep leveling that. It ONLY gets better - much better.

Dark/Dark is a good Scrapper, though pretty much every combo is a good Scrapper, so that may not mean much. If you want to split them apart, I'd recommend Katana/Dark (good survivability), Dark/Shield (DPS) or Dark/Invuln (max survivability). I'm not sure what bad things you're hearing about the sets. They have drawbacks, of course, like Dark Melee's poor AoE and Dark Armor's hefty endurance consumption. Both sets also also work best with some investment, but that's true of most things.