Werner

I'll third what's being said. My Claws/Super Reflexes was chain dying through the teens against basic enemies. It didn't bother me much since the teens fly by so fast, and since I know exactly what the build is capable of in the long run. But I could definitely see it souring a new player.

Willpower is a very friendly secondary. It blooms early and stays strong. Particularly when combined with Claws, you shouldn't have the endurance troubles that plague many builds. I would suspect that Claws/Willpower gives up some top end performance to Claws/Super Reflexes, but that might not be a big deal to you when weighed against a more difficult build to pull off, and waiting for 30 or more levels to feel strong.

Invulnerability might also be worth a look. It's particularly strong against the most common damage types in the game, not so much against some of the less common ones, and goes down fast against psionic. To the extent that you can pick your enemies, though, it could be a good choice. Not a very common choice, but it should be good.

I do think that Claws/Super Reflexes is best in the long run, but it can be an awfully long run.

If you want the flavor of the month secondary, but without all the investment, may I suggest sword and board (Broad Sword/Shield Defense)? I've had a blast with mine (currently 43), and it's been one of the most survivable scrappers I've played. On top of that, if you DO spend the influence, it'll tear through AVs just fine, just a little more slowly than DM/SD. I suspect it is particularly well suited to Architect Entertainment missions, where Parry should be able to send you enough over the soft cap to deal with all of the to hit buffs.

Broad Sword/Super Reflexes should also do well at Architect Entertainment, and for the same reason. I'd probably rather have the damage buff from Against All Odds than softcap to all positions on a budget, but it's really not a bad choice.

My Dual Blades/Willpower is my most recent 50, and I had a lot of fun playing him, but he's probably retired now.

A very common recommendation is Katana/Willpower. Very solid, no real weaknesses, strong at all levels, no endurance trouble, doesn't give up anything at the top end. The basic idea is that combining the defense from Katana with the regeneration in Willpower makes for a very potent combination. Also easy to get into and hard to mess up, since you just toggle up and go. Willpower very much just fades into the background and does its job. On the other hand, it might seem a little boring, particularly after playing Regen and Dark. Regen and Dark have personality. Not so much with Willpower.

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T9s are good though

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Only if you're a pansy. Real scrappers make do with Brawl, and Snow Ball if they're feeling bored.

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I like how Iggy_Kamakaze did it. Look in his sig for a nice vid. Did it using swip. Just swipe.

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Best. RWZ Challenge. Evar.

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There will never be any reason to split them. There's nothing that only gives defense or resistance to one. Evenly is highly inaccurate though. The real split is:

Smashing: 27,90%
Lethal:41,78%

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Parry and Divine Avalanche only protect against Lethal. It's been argued that they should protect against both so that they aren't a weird exception to the rule, but it seems less thematically appropriate to me, and they don't exactly need a buff. Thanks for the split.

(edit: Woot! The damage type changes pushed Werner just over 2000.)

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Oooh! Are you the one that studied all the damage types blue side? I saw the post and intended to plug the numbers into my spreadsheet, and then promptly forgot. I suppose I could just search for the post, but if you have the numbers handy...?

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That would be me. I did it to get as good numbers for this spreadsheet as possible. It also means they're only accurate blueside, haven't gotten around to doing redside yet. It took forever. Here's my data:

S/L 69,68%
F 5,33%
C 1,90%
E 12,12%
N 4,33%
T 4,60%
P 2,04%


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Thanks! I plugged the numbers in. Any future numbers will be based on that. I split smashing/lethal evenly. It's probably not even, but close enough for now.

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My calculations for damage on heroside came up 2% psionic.

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Oooh! Are you the one that studied all the damage types blue side? I saw the post and intended to plug the numbers into my spreadsheet, and then promptly forgot. I suppose I could just search for the post, but if you have the numbers handy...?

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Anyway, I'm getting 576 on the stone brute. I think you've missed something, either Earth's Embrace or brutes higher HP. Our calculations have been fairly even so far.

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Ah! Yes, I didn't notice that Earth's Embrace was a buff as well as a heal. Also, my Mids' is showing it recharging in 385 seconds, even though the base recharge is 360?

Why don't we just call it 576. I really don't know enough about Brute sets, and am likely to make mistake after mistake trying to calculate them unless I examine all the powers very closely, at which point it's taking way more time than I want to spend. At least until I can bring my Brutes blue side. Then I'll probably want to spend some time evaluating them much more closely. But I'm just not a fan of red side, no matter how fun Brutes can be.

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Not sure what the max DPS attainable with claws is, I am sure BillZ or Werner could help you out.

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I haven't poked at it in a while, but I think Claws is one of the best single-target DPS sets these days. Probably something in the low to mid 200s on a DPS build, maybe approaching 200 on a survivability build. OK, that's no maxed-out DM/SD DPS, but it should still be very good, and more consistent in smaller groups. And in larger groups, the AoE of Claws will shine.

I suspect that DM/SD is overall better in I14, though it depends on what all you're after. But I wouldn't switch if I had much invested in the Claws/Invuln. What level are you?

As yet another warning on taking the numbers too seriously, the exact percentage I choose for incoming psionic damage makes a huge difference to Invulnerability. I'm saying 5%. At 10%, you'd drop to 1021 with 10 enemies in range. At 0%, you'd be at 1963 with 10 enemies in range. That's a huge range for an almost arbitrary choice in the spreadsheet setup.

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So MoG doesn't drop you to 25% health? And you can still heal during it's duration? Does it still offer huge +Def & +Res?

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Yes as Werner said it is 15 seconds of invincibility you have 75 % resis and 75% def IIRC, if not that it is close to those numbers.

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Yep. It doesn't drop you to 25% health, you can still heal during its duration, and it does still offer huge defense and resistance. It's 71.3% defense and resistance. Typical builds have enough resistance to hit the resistance cap with it (75%), and 71.3% defense is way over the defensive soft-cap (45%, which floors the to-hit of most PvE enemies), so it is usually only enhanced for recharge.

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I just respeced into this great stone/stone brute build and i wanna see how it stacks up against tanks and stuff in terms of survivability so it would be really cool if u could run this build through ur machine werner

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Like other foe debuffs, I'm not accounting for Darkest Night, because the effect will depend greatly on the foe. But it will definitely add to your survivability. Same with all your knockdowns and holds in most situations. So definitely take the number with a grain of salt.

I went ahead and gave you the accolades, since I figure you have or will have at least some of them, and most people have included them in their builds. In mine, I don't have and probably won't ever have task force commander, so I skipped that one.

The main problem is that you get hit a lot, and don't have much of a way to recover health. So eventually, enemies will chip away at you, even through Granite. And this is about indefinite survivability without inspirations, so even if you overall lose a hit point per hour, it's going to call that lethal.

Another problem for you is that the number indirectly takes into account your Achilles' heel. With 5.9% psionic defense and 2.3% psionic resistance, it won't let you excel.

I could also be missing something, as I'm not very familiar with non-scrapper sets.

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Okay, this thread has got me curious to how my new dark melee/invul project stacks up with the competition.

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840 to 1343 depending on the number of targets in range of Invincibility.

Your peak performance is much higher. Surrounded by 10 or more smashing/lethal enemies, you're at 4446. That's what Invulnerability gives you – tanker performance in specific situations.

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The proc would do you more good in a faster activating attack, but there's not really a good place for it in your build without major reshuffling.

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I assume he's going for the Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Siphon Life chain. Yes, technically, the proc would do more good in Smite, but it's taking a full set of six for the defense bonus. Just swapping the slotting won't work, because you need serious recharge in Midnight Grasp for that chain. You could use an Obliteration set instead, but then the endurance drain will kill you (this looks like a no inspirations AV soloing build).

Let's see how I solved that problem... Ah, since I'm Super Reflexes, I didn't need the melee defense bonuses. Problem solved, and not helpful here.

So yeah, it would be better to have the Hecatomb in Smite, but getting it there without sacrifice will be an interesting problem. Worth trying to solve, though.

If you can get it in Smite, keep the damage and get rid of the damage/recharge instead, since Smite isn't as recharge-critical.

It's also easy to see it in Mids' with no calculation necessary. Just make sure your options are set to see average damage instead of minimum damage, then just compare what it tells you. As is, you're looking at 448.7 damage, and with the proc you're looking at 461.4 damage. So proc that puppy!

Welcome back! Katana/Regen is awesomesauce. That is all.

OK, OK, that's not all. Let's see. Katana was buffed, along with a lot of other sets. They removed the backed-in pause for redraw. So you can chain attacks faster, and the shorter the attack, the more it was buffed. So Gambler's Cut is kind of the golden child now.

I recommend chaining Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut. It technically drops the double stack on Divine Avalanche for a fraction of a second. So when defense is important, skip a Gambler's Cut somewhere. When moving or switching targets a lot, skip a couple Gambler's Cuts. I'll reiterate what was already said – put an Achilles' Heel proc in Gambler's Cut. It will provide a serious damage boost against hard targets.

To pull off that chain seamlessly, you'll need +90% recharge in Gambler's Cut. Since you should have Hasten, in a sense, that gets you most of the way there. But I'd want to keep the same chain while Hasten is down. The cheapest approach, if you're looking for cheap, is probably to frankenslot. Frankenslotting means mixing and matching cheap set IOs purely for the enhancement bonus. So in this case, you'd pick up six IOs from different sets that all enhanced recharge, but also enhanced other aspects of the power.

Moment of Glory is now a must-have power. It only lasts for 15 seconds, but it's 15 seconds of invincibility, with no health crash and during which you can heal. Slot for recharge. This is how you absorb huge alpha strikes. It's also a reset button in the middle of a fight.

Don't hit Dull Pain before a fight. It's no longer your alpha absorber, if it ever was. Hit it when seriously hurt to get both benefits of the power – the heal and the buff.

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Is all that really nessasary outside of PVP?

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Nope. But do you want to have a good scrapper, or a GREAT scrapper?

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Hmm...this looks interesting. You think you could see how well my Spines/Willpower stacks up on that spreadsheet?

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OK, with the +3% defense IO thrown in, looks like 640 to 1035 depending on the number of targets in range of Rise to the Challenge. That doesn't take any of the slows into account.

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yes someone posted a picture and i think a video of a scrapper killing the big robot GM

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In case you're talking about my video of Sergei beating the Kronos Titan, that was in a mission where he spawns as a monster but with only AV hit points and regeneration. His 20% resistance and tendency to run in a timed mission made it difficult to kill him, but he wasn't particularly dangerous.

Almost all scrappers are squishy through the teens. I was chain dying on my Claws/Super Reflexes against boring enemies. Don't worry about it. Get to level 22 and get some SOs. Just keep going. It'll get better. A lot better.

Here's my basic boilerplate for the Regen secondary:

“There are definitely other approaches, but here's what I'd consider a basic plan for the Regeneration secondary using SOs or common IOs:

- Fast Healing at 1, 3 heals
- Reconstruction nice and early, 3 heals, 3 recharges
- Quick Recovery nice and early, 1 endurance modifier at first, add 1 or 2 more as necessary
- Dull Pain when or shortly after when available, as there is a lot to squeeze in at that level, 3 heals, 3 recharges
- Integration [u]at 16[u], 3 heals, possibly 1 endurance reducer
- Resilience when and if you can work it in, 1 resist
- Instant Healing when or shortly after when available, 1-3 recharges, no heals unless you're swimming in slots
- Skip Revive
- Moment of Glory when or shortly after when available, 1-3 recharges
- Hasten when convenient, 3 recharges
- Health when convenient, 3 heals
- Tough when convenient, 3 resists, 1 endurance reducer
- Stamina if and when you start having endurance trouble, which may not be until 30 or later, 1 endurance modifier at first, add 1 or 2 more as necessary

If it were me, I'd also try to get some basic defense, but it will use up even more power and pool choices. Combat Jumping or Hover, but don't worry about slotting for defense. Weave with 3 defense. Maneuvers with 3 defense. The Steadfast Protection unique in Resilience or Tough. With even-level SOs, that will give you 14.3% defense to all. Not great, but not bad.

The astute observer will notice that I've now recommended 5 power pools – Leaping or Flight, Fitness, Fighting, Leadership and Speed. You can't have everything, so you'll need to make some choices. I dropped Speed, using IO set bonuses and my primary (Katana) to drastically improve my defense. Most people should probably drop Leadership instead. You'll probably find Hasten more useful than Maneuvers.”

/bind g dance1
/bind e “powexecname Combat Jumping$$powexecname Super Jump”

And that's it for me. I would probably recommend setting up a key to tab to the next enemy and follow, but I've gotten very used to just hitting keys very fast.

I never bothered binding any of my regen clicks. They're not even mapped to my mouse. I move my mouse over the power icon and click it. Typically, I'll be hovering over the one I expect I'll need next anyway. Probably not the most efficient approach, but it's worked fine, particularly since I don't need to move during combat (other than tab follow, which doesn't require the mouse).

The highest DPS I've seen so far out of Dark Melee/Shield Defense was about 300 DPS. Giant Monsters regenerate the equivalent of about 360 DPS. So unfortunately no, not possible with a scrapper.

Guess I'd have to figure out how diminished returns work, but I'm sure there's a way to take them into account. The spreadsheet assumes you're spamming your survival powers as fast as they come up, so I'd do diminished returns based on that same frequency somehow.

I'll want to clean up the PvE version first, but that's at least a step in the right direction.

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Seeing everyone else has been giving this a shot today, i'd love to see what my survivability is if you can Werner, thanks.

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I'm guessing the empty slot is for the other +3% defense unique? With that, 638. I'm not accounting for Against All Odds in any way, though, which could take you to 690 in ideal circumstances.

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Thanks mate, lower than I thought she'd be, and another reason to work on my new Dark/Inv (or maybe Fire/SR with Aid Self could be the better choice)

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Eh, not really. John_Printemps' shield guide has a Broad Sword/Shield build that hits 2177. So it can play with the big boys for certain. And probably the biggest difference between the two builds is just Aid Self. And you know what? I HATE Aid Self. Keep in mind that I'm not taking inspiration use into account. So you might skip Aid Self because green inspirations are faster and easier. Frankly, I think that's a good choice for the vast majority of this game. But it'll KILL your numbers in my spreadsheet. So don't sweat it.

That said, both Dark Melee/Invuln and Fire/Super Reflexes are GREAT combinations. But then, they're scrappers. All scrappers are great.

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Thanks Werner, alot lower then I expected, but it is a PvP build.

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Exactly, it's a PvP build, and it also doesn't mean you can't do incredible things with the build in PvE if you're willing to violate the unreasonable assumptions baked into the spreadsheet, like not using inspirations or temporary powers, not having anyone on your team buffing you, and so on. I'm sure you already know that since it's your character, but yeah, once again, don't take the number too seriously.

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In your sheet soft cap at 45% is the same as 68%? Mind you 68% melee and I'm like oh wow, something actually hit me, wow. If i hit elude then its 3 mins of me feeling like I grabed the lil star out of Mario.

The build used to have less def, still all at soft cap, and less net recov, but 200% rech. it was fun having almost no "down" time, but still i got hit more.

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Right, my sheet assumes the normal PvE enemy to-hit, which is 50%, which means that any defense over 45% doesn't change their chance to hit you at all. A few enemies have to-hit, but it's been few and far between. Architect Entertainment is changing that somewhat, so I may need to reevaluate at some point.

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Also is there a way to rework your spread sheet for PvP analysis. I would love to work with you on it if it's possible.

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Well... maybe. I don't PvP, so the project doesn't interest me much. But some of it seems like it would be easy. I can make some suggestions and maybe work with you a little on it. Warning – I tend to bite off more than I can chew, feel overwhelmed, and then suddenly I stop answering most PMs for a while, which kind of makes me a dick, but ah, well. Anyway, there's a to-hit formula hidden in my spreadsheet with 50% plugged in. I didn't put that number external anywhere, but it wouldn't be too hard to pull it out and plug in some other number. 50% to hit is probably ridiculously low for PvP, which is part of why my DM/SR build with 2242 would get get me my [censored] handed to me going up against your build with 396. The other and probably bigger factor is skill. I'm great at beating on big bags of hit points with stupid AI that spam the same attacks over and over. I have no clue how to fight a player.

Anyway, the formula looks something like this:

=E4*(50%-MAX($D488;E$487))*(100%-$C488)

The 50% there is the to-hit of your enemy. I'd put some cell at the top of the sheet for the enemy to-hit, and plug in 75% or something. Use it in the formula. Also add another term to the max which is 5% less than that. I've been doing that manually in my head, but that's retarded. So you'd want something like this:

=E4*($A$2-MAX($D488;E$487;$A$2-5%))*(100%-$C488)

I should set up the formula like that anyway, even if I never change the number for my own purposes.

Yeah, maybe I just need to write a more user-friendly version of this thing, with more readable templates for various power combinations, and more things that you can plug in rather than having them baked into the formulas.

What other changes would you want for PvP? You might want to change the percentage distribution of various attack types and positions, but that's already enterable.

Here's one big problem for PvP analysis – so VERY much is based on skill, far more so than in PvE. So how much is a number going to mean? Ah, but I guess it serves the same purpose as it does for me – comparing various versions of builds for a single character as I try to tweak and optimize. Since it's all for you, the skill level is the same regardless, so it'll provide at least SOME information. Not a ton, but some, and some may be better than none.

Hmmm.

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Do you figure in hitpoints in this number?

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Yes and no. We're looking at sustainable average incoming damage as if it comes as smoothly as possible with no spikes, or more accurately with the exact spikes to match your heals. At that point, hit points don't really matter directly. On the other hand, they matter a great deal indirectly, as they buff regeneration and some heals. Generally speaking, hit points have a linear effect on the number. Twice the hit points will give you roughly twice the number.

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I would consider this a major flaw in the rating system then. There's no question a 1800hp scrapper has a much greater survivabilty factor then a 1400hp scrapper with the same stats... and it's not from 28% more regen.

I look at it from a "what are the odds of the thing happening that's going to kill me" perspective. If the thing that kills me is getting hit by 2 alpha shots in succession, and each shot has a 5% chance of landing, then my chance of dieing is 1 in 400. If I increase my hp by enough to turn that into 3 alpha shots, i'm now at 1 in 8000.

That's an oversimplifed model, that assumes for example, that I can always get back to full hp after the barrage of alpha shots that we're calculating... and that all alpha shots are created equal...etc. But it illistrates my point. In this game, very few AVs can string together 1-2 combos of over 1600 hp, but most can do over 1336.

Your calculation would rate the 1600hp build and the 1400hp build as nearly identical, yet I think you'll agree, in practice they most certainly are not.

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I'll agree they aren't identical in practice, yes.

Basically, I already covered this briefly in the discussion of the difference between average performance and the discreet effects. I'm sure Arcanaville covered it much better. I think the right answer is to write a simulator, and I'm not going to go that far. I could add some sort of fudge factor to “overweight” hit points, but I'm not a big fan of just making up fudge factors. I prefer, instead, to just keep the weaknesses in mind when using my model.

I'll keep stressing that these numbers aren't particularly meaningful, and are best used for comparisons of rather similar builds, which is how I've personally used them. Even then, it's good to keep in mind what they're over and underweighting to avoid being led astray.

Another way to think of these numbers is something like DPS. Hopefully we all know that DPS is only moderately related to in-game damage output, and our simple models of doing damage will only approximate real damage in-game on edge cases like soloing pylons. They don't tell us much at all about AoE, which is actually king in much or most of the game.

But, similar to DPS, I find them useful personally. They're just no substitute for an understanding of what you'll actually face in the game. If you're facing down AVs, you'll want the hit points to survive the hits. It doesn't matter how fast you heal if you can get killed by two hits in a row, because eventually, that's gonna land.

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I had the -Res Proc in Whirling for AoE -Res for teaming purposes. This is a General PvE Build with the intention of solo and team capability.

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Ah, didn't see that. Basically, when fighting minions, Achilles' Heel only catches up to a regular old damage proc under IDEAL circumstances. In all other situations, a regular damage proc wins. Since AoEs tend to be mostly for minion munching, they're a poor spot for the Achilles' Heel proc. Save them for your single-target boss killing chain.

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Hey I was wondering if you wouldn't mind running my Claws/SR through your scoring system. Take your time of course, whenever you have time to get around to it I'd greatly appreciate it. Here's the link:

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