Werner

Well, in I17, I was just about endurance sustainable. Then things got wrecked in I18, both endurance and defense. I think I can fix it, but my DPS goes down a lot. I may wait until I19 and see what I can do.

I know I'm playing one, but I really can't recommend all swords unless you really, really want it. The AoE can be good, but the single-target DPS sucks for a Fire/Shield, and won't be buffed much by fodder because you'll be destroying them too fast with Fire Sword Circle. Also, you'd need Fire Sword Circle to recharge in 5.67 seconds to avoid gaps. You're not even close when Hasten is up, let alone when it's down. All swords takes huge recharge to do sad DPS. It's a pricey exercise in self-gimpage, only to be undertaken if you have influence burning a hole in your pocket, really really want a fire sword chain, and don't care about ultimate performance. Turns out that was me, so I'm running one. But seriously, don't do it!!!

I'm a big fan of performance shifter. If you're three-slotting, chance for endurance, endurance mod, and either a common endurance mod or a performance shifter endmod/something. With four slots, four performance shifters. On a well-built Regen (perma Dull Pain), you won't need many hit point bonuses, so the three-slot version probably goes to the common endurance mod. You can also six slot performance shifters if you're going for defense, which is a good thing to go for after recharge on a Regen. Everything kind of depends on the build as a whole, though. There's no good way to optimize each power individually and somehow end up with a cohesive whole.

Yeah, on Katana/Electric, I think I'd go with enough recharge to run the DPS chain, but try to keep Divine Avalanche in the build. Then you can drop back to at least being a fairly survivable Scrapper, even if most of the IO action is supporting DPS. I agree with Amy that Dual Blades has better AoE options if that's an interest. Survivability vs. AoE, I suppose. I'd think Claws/Electric would behave similarly to Dual Blades/Electric, though with a lower DPS potential.

I play my Electric/Fire with a level-pacted tank, so I'm playing it as a blapper with mez protection. All offense, no defense. I don't have my tier 9 attack or Fiery Embrace yet, and it's already an AoE death machine (level 30). It's going to be great in about five more levels and frankenslotted into its final offensive specs. But God help me if I try to leap into a giant uplevel spawn by myself. That's fixable, of course, to some extent. But it isn't a build priority since I'm almost never solo and only need to deal with aggro bleed, not with full spawns.

I wouldn't think that Dark Melee/Electric would be particularly strong no temps no insps. Overly simplistic, but to me, adding survivability to a resistance set is done with defense rather than a heal. You can do a lot with IOs, of course, but almost certainly not soft cap it, at least not practically. You could probably make it so that a single purple soft capped you, and be seriously badass for regular missioning WITH inspirations, but I suspect it would always have only middle of the road survivability without them.

I haven't done any calculations, but I'm going to guess that Katana/Electric is capable of around 260-270 DPS. In the better DPS column, I believe that Katana can pull off a little better raw DPS than Dual Blades, and at a lower level of recharge, possibly allowing for additional +damage slotting. In the lower DPS column, Katana won't be boosting Lightning Field nearly as much as Dual Blades. I'm figuring it'll work out around even.

The TROUBLE is that if you have a DPS build, you may not have the survivability to take on a pylon. On the other hand, you can always grab a spare tank to help out if all you're interested in is seeing your DPS, and NOT treating it as a survivability exercise as well. And also, Dual Blades/Electric doesn't have any more survivability than Katana in that regard, so it probably just takes doing a few runs until you get lucky.

I'm leveling a Katana/Electric myself, though he's just a lowbie. Not sure what I'm going to do with him, if anything, but it just sounded like fun. Electric/Fire is my current addiction, though.

I don't find that the sets work almost exactly the same. For example, build up. Yes, all sets have some version of it, but it comes in different flavors that play differently. There's your traditional build up, which is a click power that gives you 10 seconds of awesome. There's a follow up type build up, which is an attack that you use in your attack string that buffs subsequent attacks for 10 seconds. And there's Dark Melee's Soul Drain, which is a PBAoE attack that does a little damage and buffs your attacks for every target hit for the next 30 seconds.

I don't think the main thing of interest about Katana and Broad Sword are the defense debuffs, but rather the defense buffs in the form of Divine Avalanche and Parry. They're HUGE, at least on a low to medium defense secondary, and still good on a high defense secondary to help with leveling up.

I wasn't aware that Dual Blades is generally regarded as less capable of doing single target damage than other sets. I guess people need to be made aware that it's actually QUITE capable of single target DPS. The only drawback in that regard is that you can't combine it with Shield Defense, so you're never going to see it as king of the Pylon soloing charts. That said, a Dual Blades/Electric was smack dab in the middle of the cluster of Shield Builds at the top, and far above any other non-Shield build. I wouldn't rate its AoE as superior to Spines, though. I'd put it down around Claws. That's not bad, but not top of the heap either, and again, you can't combine it with Shield Defense for additional damage and additional AoE.

But it's also true that unless you know what you're after, you might as well pick whatever sounds like fun. They're ALL good. There are no clear winners and losers among the primaries and secondaries. They just have different strengths and weaknesses.

I'm at 1796, and would be at 1863 if I had Task Force Commander. 313% regen. It's an old build, though, so no Physical Perfection or PvPs or anything. I19 might be a good reason to finally upgrade.

Well, it USED to be Katana, though pretty much just because of how it could take advantage of procs. Then they buffed Martial Arts, and in particular Eagle's Claw got interesting. Now I'm not certain which would be better because I haven't poked into what the new set can do.

I'm guessing that neither does significantly more than the other at this point. Katana would probably be more survivable while leveling due to Divine Avalanche. But I'm doing OK with Martial Arts/Fire, and Martial Arts/Willpower should be significantly more survivable than that. It'd be fine if that's your preference.

Yeah, sounds like the Achilles' Heel is reasonable for now based on how you play, and the purple proc might be a better idea in the long run if you really want to shell out the influence.

Well, someone wrote a response about recharge levels, and I missed who, and now it's gone, or maybe I'm just crazy. But I prepared a response, and it might be informative, so I might as well post it. It will also illustrate some differences, and how they don't add up to much of a difference.

I mostly care about top end L50 builds, so I could be off for lower recharge levels and earlier attack chains. I DO have an attack chain library, so let's at least see what we have for what I consider the good end game attack chains of both sets. Mids' average damage, no enhancements, Aracanatime taken into account.

I need to clean this up, but here's my standard explanation of why you normally shouldn't put an Achilles' Heel in an true AoE attack.

It kind of imports into the I18 Mids'. It shows Stamina, but not the rest of the new inherents. I don't know enough about Blasters to comment intelligently anyway. I just wanted to say that...

Gah! Your costumes are just too good for words!

I'm not certain, but I think your damage bonus monitor is reporting base damage enhancement. Enhancements also improve damage. So do build up powers, team buffs, and so on. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that everyone averages about 140% enhancement, and that your damage bonus is reporting 120%.

Brute: 75 * (100% base + 140% enhancement + 120% buff from fury) = 270
Scrapper: 112.5 * (100% base + 140% enhancement) * 110% criticals = 297

NOTE: I have no idea if I'm doing this right. I've played a few brutes, but never number crunched them, or cared much about inter-AT differences as long as I'm having fun and others say they're at least vaguely in range of each other.

(Edit: Didn't see Bill's post before posting. I gather I'm doing it right, then.)

Or you may get a purple (ultra-rare) recipe drop. I got one today. It sold for half a billion crafted. So one good drop is all it takes to fund a really nice IO build.