Werner
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Quote:Going off topic, but it hardly warrants a thread of its own. I picked up Invincibility a little while ago (hit 30 last night), so now aggro is no longer a problem, which means that fury is no longer a problem (not that it really was before), so it's starting to get fun (not that it wasn't). I'm seriously focused on survivability, though, so my attacks have been lagging behind a bit. That'll probably get fixed through the thirties. Need to tell the team to crank up their mission levels now that I can hold aggro, though. At this point, I'm buffed to 90% smashing/lethal resistance, have decent defense, and I'm spamming Siphon Life. I don't even touch Dull Pain at whatever level people are running (looks like +0x1 with bosses, woo). Bidding on a Kismet and a Steadfast. I have buckets of them blue side, but I don't play much red side, so never set myself up with anything.Originally Posted by JamMasterJMS
I think that the dm/inv brute your running up is gonna be just as fun!
With higher lvls and more slots in your AoE drains, "tankin" on that brutes gonna be hellafun.
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Id love to hear updates from you on that toon. -
Doesn't look like you're quite there. Golden Dragonfly itself has +89.93% recharge, +20% from Quickness, +70% from Hasten, +62.5% from set bonuses = +242.43%. Very close, but not quite. Mind you, that's almost certainly still your best chain, but you'll have a tiny fraction of a second delay. An easier target to verify is the required recharge time at 3.43 seconds. You're sitting at 3.5 seconds. Won't make much practical difference.
Edit: Doh! You caught and fixed the problem before I submitted my reply. -
Quote:I'm going to try to simplify, hopefully without badly misstating everything.Originally Posted by _Pine_
Also if I remember correctly from a couple days ago. There is actually a lag between activation time that is displayed and the actual time it takes... Or something like that. (its very convoluted)
- Sever ticks are every 0.132 seconds.
- The previous power you activated must be flagged complete on a server tick.
- The next power can only activate on the NEXT server tick.
As a result of these facts, there is an irreducible delay BETWEEN powers. Even though your previous power has finished activating, the server doesn't realize it until the next server tick. So you're basically rounding your activation time up to the next server tick. And then you have to wait one MORE server tick before the new power fires. So the delay varies between 0.132 and 0.264 seconds, the duration of which depends on the activation time of the first of the two powers. When doing calculations that require accounting for this delay, such as DPS calculations or calculations of required recharge, we typically add this delay to the activation time of the power, and call this Arcanatime. So:
Arcanatime = (roundup(ActivationTime/0.132)+1)*0.132
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If you are soft capped on a Super Reflexes, you do not need Divine Avalanche.
Top Katana chain is Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut, which requires +250% recharge in Golden Dragonfly.
You should either have Practiced Brawler on auto or be good at remembering to click it in time. -
I haven't played it, but I remember an old thread where we were trying to figure out what the most uncommon Scrapper combination probably was. One guess was Martial Arts/Dark Armor. And then we started thinking about it, and decided it would actually be a lot of fun, for the reasons you mention.
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Quote:Originally Posted by GangstaBlade
How is it numerically inferior?Quote:Originally Posted by GangstaBlade
The wording of that Werner used, make me think that he pretty certain, that he thinks and probably has some paper to back himself up that Katana is better, but I think BS is stronger.Well, here's basically what I mean.Quote:Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Werner's statements are made from the position of someone measuring DPS, which is at its most meaningful when contending with large individual targets with a large individual quantity of hit points, such as Giant Monsters, AVs, and Pylons.
The ability to one-shot a trio of minions may be meaningless to the scrapper players who care about such thing, but that's not what most people mind. OP, you'll have a blast.
These are the DPA (damage per Arcanatime) numbers for Broad Sword vs. Katana using unslotted Mids' average level 50 damage. Notice that five favor Katana, one is equal, and only one is in Broad Sword's favor. In practice, Katana usually beats Broad Sword on damage output. It's hard for it not to.
Damage per endurance is mostly the same, but Katana puts out more endurance-efficient AoE damage.Code:Hack 71.28 > 60.45 Sting of the Wasp Slash 43.43 < 62.55 Gambler's Cut Slice 37.70 < 51.59 Flashing Steel Parry 36.49 = 36.49 Divine Avalanche Whirling Sword 30.17 < 46.11 The Lotus Drops Disembowel 68.13 < 78.22 Soaring Dragon Head Splitter 74.60 < 82.83 Golden Dragonfly
Katana's quicker attacks can take better advantage of procs, in particular the -resistance procs. With its high end chains, a single Achilles' Heel in Gambler's Cut tends to take care of your -resistance "needs". Broad Sword takes greater slotting compromises to pull of the same level of -resistance.Code:Hack 13.23 = 13.23 Sting of the Wasp Slash 13.23 = 13.23 Gambler's Cut Slice 9.92 < 11.29 Flashing Steel Parry 13.23 = 13.23 Divine Avalanche Whirling Sword 6.74 < 7.02 The Lotus Drops Disembowel 13.23 = 13.23 Soaring Dragon Head Splitter 13.86 > 13.78 Golden Dragonfly
You might think that burst damage, which is valuable quite separately from DPS, would favor Broad Sword due to its higher-damaging attacks. And yeah, if your measurement of burst damage is simply how much damage the biggest attack does, sure, Broad Sword wins. But I think that you're going to stand there for your full animation time before you get that damage. So if by burst we just mean the highest single-attack DPA (damage per activation time here, as Arcanatime includes a delay AFTER the attack has done damage), Katana still wins.
And if we mean anything more than a single attack, then the higher DPA (damage per Arcanatime) numbers of Katana continue to mount. I could probably assemble a graph showing which primary had the advantage at every clock tick. Katana would get the advantage first since the damage will occur sooner, Broad Sword would pull ahead when Head Splitter connected, and then they'd probably trade back and forth for a little while as each attack landed until Katana pulled firmly ahead due to higher DPS. I haven't bothered doing that, so perhaps it will show some sort of significant advantage to Broad Sword in some particular low time frame. I doubt it, though.Code:Head Splitter 80.30 < 89.62 Golden Dragonfly
Now, in some cases, it's going to be a matter of whether that one attack kills the enemy, or leaves it alive for the next attack. And Head Splitter is more likely to "arrest" someone than Golden Dragonfly. But generally speaking, you have less wasted damage out of shorter, smaller attacks, so I generally consider that an advantage in favor of Katana. As long as I get good DPA, I want short attacks. They waste less damage (and in a derivative sense endurance) while plowing through spawns, so you'll plow through spawns faster and more efficiently with Katana than the comparative DPA numbers above indicate.
My understanding is that in PvP, attack damage is dependent entirely on the duration of the attack. I assume this is then affected by Arcanatime, so shorter attacks will tend to be penalized more than longer attacks. My understanding is also that you're very rarely chaining attacks together. In that case, I'd think you'd be best off with the longest animating, highest hitting attacks. So in that case, my guess is that Broad Sword is numerically better for PvP. But I haven't done any calculations because I don't care about PvP.
Broad Sword also has a couple of non-numerical advantages. First, it's the only sword primary that combines with Shield Defense, which, as mauk2 says, means "Suck it, katana!" I also understand that it has more weapon customization options.
And UberGuy is very right:
So I'm not trying to talk anyone out of Broad Sword. I'm a min/maxer and I still like and play Broad Sword, even if it isn't the min/max choice. You probably won't notice the difference in practice unless you're measuring it by timing defeats or running herostats because it isn't a huge, glaring difference. I don't think I'm sensitive enough to notice the difference personally. In fact, if you notice anything, you'll probably "feel" like Broad Sword is doing better damage. Broad Sword DOES seem to "feel" that way to a great number of people.Quote:Originally Posted by UberGuy
Unless you're planning to make a career of soloing AVs and Rikti Pylons as fast as you can, the performance difference between the two really isn't large enough to care about. If you like the idea of BS or it fits your concept, you should absolutely roll a BS Scrapper. If you end up not liking it, it's definitely not going to be because it can't kill stuff. -
Broad Sword is numerically inferior to Katana is nearly every way. Slightly. It's not enough to keep me from playing Broad Sword since I love the SMASH CRUNCH of it. I have just as many Broad Swords at 50 as I have Katanas (2 each). Broad Sword/Shield Defense was the most fun I've had 1-50. And yeah, I rolled my other L50 Broad Sword years ago. No real reason to avoid it. It's a great set.
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I've never deleted a 50. But I'd consider it if I really didn't like the character and really wanted the space. I just don't have any 50s that I actively dislike, and I don't need the space.
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Quote:I would hope not. I'd think they'd be adding harder content because it's so easy to demolish the existing content. If they buffed us so that we could demolish the new content just as easily, then the old content would be even more of a cakewalk. That's not really what I'm looking for out of this game.Originally Posted by Mr_Hellcat
Generally speaking, if Shield out performs the other secondaries and it's going to be needed for tougher enemies, then shouldn't almost ALL secondaries be getting buffed to match Shields?
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Quote:Yep. If I was measuring Blaster DPS against a Pylon, I WOULD do it with a Tank taunting. So far, I've only played blasters on dedicated teams that include a Tank. So yes, a realistic measure of what I contribute to an AV fight or other DPS situations involves me not needing to worry about damage for the most part.Originally Posted by Gaidin
An example would be a blaster trying to determine what damage he contributes to an AV fight. The blaster in question doesn't have capped def to Ranged, so he wouldn't survive against a pylon to check his DPS, but his team Tank/Defender controls aggro/buffs & heals him so that he can focus on damage. Having a Tank taunt the pylon wouldn't be much different than an AV fight on a team with a competent Tank/Defender.
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Ah, and thinking about it, I understand why that hasn't been an issue for me. Two of my main builds are Katana with well over 45% defense, so when he debuffs, I still have 45% melee defense, so a freight train melee attack is still very likely to miss. And Super Reflexes doesn't get debuffed, so again, it's very likely to miss. There's no debuff you till you can't defend yourself, then wipe you out with big attacks. I guess my combination choices might as well have been designed to make him not a big deal. I can see how he'd be a lot of trouble with many other combinations.
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Quote:Can do, but it comes with caveats just like my Fire/Shield. The main one is that this is an I16 build. Due to the Miracle nerf, endurance is no longer sustainable (it was actually just slightly under sustainable already). Due to the Blessing of the Zephyr nerf, defense is no longer soft capped. I wouldn't play this as is. I would fiddle with it to pick up sustainable endurance and the soft cap again. Also, it is not generally recommended to go with the lowbie attack chain I use here. In this case, the build was almost purely about survival, not damage output. It'll do about 175 DPS, which is sufficient, but very boring. It has AoE, but only farms about 1/3 the speed of a dedicated farmer. Also worth noting is that Katana/Dark is very sensitive to defense debuffs. My melee defense was high enough over the soft cap to deal with minor debuffs, such as you see on AVs other than a few nasty ones. But it's really nasty trying to take on uplevel Cimerorans or Arachnos, that kind of thing. OK, on to the build:Originally Posted by eryq2
I want to try a Fire/SD and another Katana but unsure which 2ndary to go with. Maybe /Dark if Werner will send me a copy of his build.
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Quote:Well, maybe Fire/Shield IS for you then. It'll level just fine, and if you spend billions on it, it's VERY strong. The main thing is that you need to be careful with how you build it, or you may be disappointed.Originally Posted by Naruto98
Thanks for the advice. I don't really care how much the build costs since I farm a lot. I just want a top of the end build. I like powers that do AoE. Most of the powers I chose eat so much of my endurance. If anyone has a good build to show on any scrapper build they think is awesome, then I would love to see it.
Let's start with the basics of survivability on Shield Defense:
- Slot Deflection and Battle Agility with three defense SOs
- Slot Weave with three defense SOs
- Slot Combat Jumping with one defense SO
- Slot Active Defense with three recharge SOs for a nice margin of error
- Slot a Steadfast Protection unique
- Take Phalanx Fighting
- Use a single small purple inspiration at a time as required
Those power choices and that slotting puts you at 32.4% defense. One small purple inspiration puts you at 44.9% defense, effectively soft-capped. Status protection and the defense soft cap is all you need to be almost unkillable in normal content. You can now focus the rest of your build on destroying your enemies, at which it will excel. Now, I DO recommend taking True Grit and at least slotting heal SOs in it. You'll want to take and slot Tough (had to take it to get to Weave anyway).
The other thing I STRONGLY suggest is frankenslotting your attacks in the mid 30s or so. For me, the MAIN purpose of the frankenslotting isn't damage output (though it usually improves), but endurance savings.
And here is my own leveling build. I'm not saying it's the best possible leveling build; it isn't. I don't PLAN my leveling builds like I do my end game builds. I just know the game well enough that I can do decently by just picking powers as I go. And this was a very solid build to level with, even if it isn't the ultimate. Think of it as a starting point or as an example, not as a "do it exactly like this". Ignore the levels on the slots - I put the build together in Mids' AFTER I hit 50, and don't have a clue when I picked up the slots. You can get a vague indication from the levels of some of the IOs, though. I didn't buy the highest level I could slot though, just whatever was fairly close to that level, and I could pick up NOW and CHEAPISH on the market. All of this was afforded on influence earned by leveling. Technically, I spotted the character 10 million from another character, but he had well over 10 million for most of his career, so it wouldn't have made much difference if he didn't have a sugar daddy. Not that influence will be a problem for you. Endurance WAS a bit of an issue, despite the massive endurance reduction in the attacks. I was running Tactics, Grant Cover and Assault situationally rather than leaving them on. Oh, another thing to note is that I was playing team tank. That's why he's missing some great attacks like Incinerate and Greater Fire Sword, while going above and beyond on survivability. For a general purpose build, I'd probably stop worrying about defense at around 32.5%, not slot True Grit for resistance, respec into a different chain at a high level, and so on. Oh, and Health is overslotted because I was trying to pick up the Numina and Miracle uniques to fix my endurance problems. But I wasn't willing to pay market price, and didn't get lucky with my lowball bids spread across various levels (on a rich character, not this one). You don't want to overslot health like that unless it's for IOs. Anyway, with that massive list of caveats, here's my leveling build.
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Quote:LOL. Very true. Not a build I'd play.Originally Posted by Chaos_String
And where the build you posted does 237dps for about 71 seconds and then dies horribly,
Your revised build looks very nice, but yes, you have to ask yourself if it's any better than anything else you already play. That's why I didn't IO out my Broad Sword/Shield Defense. I had great fun leveling it, but when I started comparing what I could do with it to what I could already do with my existing Scrappers, nothing about it stood out enough to be worth the investment. In your case, yeah, Broad Sword/Shield Defense is probably capable of better DPS with similar survivability. Dual Blades/Super Reflexes would be fun, but wouldn't really be better in a numerical sense, so it's a matter of what you're after and how much you're willing to spend.Quote:Originally Posted by Chaos_String
Burnsides maintains his 220dps indefinitely.
So my revised build is functional and capable of many feats of derring-do, but I have to ask myself whether it's a sword build on par with my BS/SD and Kat/WP. When I was looking at maybe 240ish dps from DB/SR I was thinking thumbs up, but looking at maybe 220ish dps, I'm awfully nonplussed. I'm thinking there must still be room for improvement.
I'm sure there's still room for improvement - I spend tens of hours on my own builds, fiddling and tweaking. And they do improve. But after the first couple hours, I think you can get a good idea about what will be possible. In this case, while nothing is jumping out at me to change, let's say you could boost damage output to 225 or 230 DPS while making minor improvements to survivability. Then would it be worth it? I think you'd still be in the same boat when comparing to your existing Scrappers.
I might personally do it. For some reason, I've always wanted a top chain Dual Blades, just because. Well, in my case, I'd probably go with Blinding Feint -> Sweeping Strike -> Ablating Strike, trading some DPS for extra cone damage to tear apart spawns. It's pointless, particularly since I have a Fire/Shield I could IO out for better numbers, but it just seems like it would be fun. -
Quote:It's very difficult to kill, particularly in its element (surrounded by smashing/lethal enemies), but Dark/Invuln won't do a lot of damage. Burst and single-target DPS are passable, but nothing to write home about, while it lacks significantly in the AoE department.Originally Posted by Santorican
The strongest I'd probably say would be Dark/Invul as it has good resistance, defenses, a +hp buff, and with dark a self heal.
I think the best combination of overall damage (burst, AoE and single-target DPS) and survivability (with a careful selection of pool powers, Steadfast Protection unique, attack frankenslotting, and inspiration use) is Fire/Shield. If you build it "wrong", though, you may be disappointed in its survivability, or find yourself constantly burning out of blue.
A very user-friendly Scrapper is Katana/Willpower. Easy to build, easy to play, easy to level, and gives up nothing in top end survivability. Damage output is only passable, but it has better AoE than Dark Melee (though still not great).
I think it really comes down to what you mean by "strongest". For leveling on a budget? Early-blooming? Late game awesomeness? Level 50 top end multi-billionaire build? With very careful power selection and slotting? Very forgiving of "bad" power selection and slotting? Burst damage? Single target DPS? AoE? With or without inspirations? Survivability? Farming? No temps no insps Archvillain soloer? Top score in the Rikti Pylon soloing thread? Ability to tank for a team of 8? PvP for that matter? Even the powergamers play a vast variety of builds. Different combinations are better at different things. -
Quote:Shadowhunter? With the wolves? That guy? Don't remember him being much of a problem on any of my high end builds. But Positron, yeah, nasty. Think I beat him with Sergei (DM/SR). Silver Mantis is also seriously nasty for much the same reason.Originally Posted by Santorican
Positron makes me foam at the mouth. He is seriously the biggest PITA AV this side of Shadow Hunter.
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Yep, you correctly interpreted the numbers I posted. I should have posted an explanation, since higher up in the spreadsheet, I already HAD the explanation written out. Forgot I'd done that.
I don't know for certain that you have to wait for the next server tick after a shorter gap. I haven't tested it. I'm not sure I have a build to test it. It's just what makes sense to me based on my understanding of what Arcanaville was saying. If it is the server driving the timing, the server doesn't care that your power is recharged and ready to go before the next server tick, you're still going to have to wait for the next server tick to actually activate it.
I suspect you'd be able to fiddle with the build to get the gap down where you need it without severely compromising it. The compromised build I posted had, I believe, significantly MORE recharge than it needed to get to a single tick gap. I'm sure there's a happy medium.
Yeah, I wouldn't personally want to test DPS on a pylon with a tank taunting. I don't want to make the situation any more unrealistic than it already is. Staying alive is a realistic part of any scenario where applying your DPS comes into play, most specifically Archvillains. Most of them hit harder than a pylon, I'd say, so you want to at least be able to survive a pylon on your own. On the other hand, I don't see a realistic way to include healing into DPS calculations, so if I were trying to confirm my understanding of DPS, I'd want to do it with repeated runs with a taunting tank, or at least have a character that didn't need any active healing. -
It depends on what you're fighting. Level 50 AVs have 87% (?) ToHit debuff resistance. If you're fighting +4s, I *think* the purple patch will affect you, so is only 48% as effective. The way I look at it, anything dangerous enough for me to NEED the -ToHit is dangerous enough that I can't count on the -ToHit. I want my raw defense to handle it, period.
That said, yes, of course -ToHit will make SOME difference in practice. It's a nice to have, but not what you take Rise to the Challenge for, or what you slot for. -
Quote:Well, while not my main point, that kind of IS something I'm saying. Pools exist, and the game forces you to take at least six pool powers. The game MUST be balanced with pool powers in mind, or it won't be balanced. Therefore, no secondary is going to stand entirely on its own, because each is balanced around the expectation that you will use power pools to your advantage. That can make Shield Defense seem weak if you aren't doing this, since it's the expectation made when balancing.Originally Posted by Thremaine
I think there's a slight problem if you have to dig into pools so heavily to make a survivable build... though I suppose that's not what you are saying.
OK, fair enough. You are, of course, completely correct. To get great survivability, you really have to focus on your build and do things that a lot of people simply don't know to do or won't do. You need to be conservative in your picks from your primary, pick up all the right pool powers, slot things a particular way, perhaps purchase a very specific IO (Steadfast Protection unique) and frankenslot your attacks to get the endurance to power it all (if you don't want to rest a lot). So yes, something like Willpower is better for a first time Scrapper unless they're following a cookie cutter build that gets them what they need when they need it, and are willing to accept compromises in other areas (like variety of attacks and perhaps concept).Quote:Originally Posted by Thremaine
...I know you can soft cap defenses with right builds but then you have to actually focus on building the character. I wouldn't pick shield as the first scrapper for that reason.
I guess my main point was that Shield Defense doesn't have to be squishy, even when you're on a budget. You don't need expensive IOs. The survivability problems you're having can be avoided if you do a few specific things to avoid them. You might have good reason not to do those things, but it's a choice to pursue other things instead of survivability.
I think my Fire/Shield died less than ten times leveling 1-50, and about half of those would have been easily prevented had I taken my head out of my *** earlier and just three-slotted Active Defense instead of putting my foot down and trying to force myself to get good at clicking it in time. And no, I wasn't being a wimp in regards to what I fought. I don't remember my exact settings, but I played small team tank from 1-50. By the mid 30s, as I recall, the main question to answer was "how purple is too purple?" In the 40s, I was street sweeping up to +5 groups in Peregrine, with bosses. All of this was on a build bought with the influence I earned as I leveled. Shield Defense can be extremely solid on a budget. Shield Defense can be an extremely solid leveling build. You just have to build it a specific way.
But you're still right. I'd normally steer a first-time Scrapper towards something like Willpower. Willpower is easier to play, easier to get right, and gives up nothing in top end survivability. In this case, Willpower wasn't in the list, but Dark Melee/Invulnerability should be a very good choice. Dark Melee will provide the endurance and healing, and Invulnerability should handle the rest. It's a very nice combination. You give up AoE, but that just slows you down a little, as opposed to making you face plant, or burning out your endurance, or other things that people dislike a lot. I've heard complaints about the long road to get Invincibility. It's not a Scrapper, but I have a level 26 Dark Melee/Invulnerability Brute. I DO hate the long road to Invincibility there, but Brutes want aggro a lot more than Scrappers. Plus I'm the team tank, which is difficult when you hate Confront and don't have a Taunt aura. If you aren't Brute tanking, I'd think Invulnerability would be fine even while leveling up to Invincibility. Heck, it's even been fine for me. My teammates can handle SOME aggro bleed, and I've just accepted that as tank, damage is not my primary role, so taking slightly longer to build fury doesn't really affect team performance. -
Quote:I get 205 DPS for that build. If you want to double check my work:Originally Posted by Chaos_String
I'm working on a DB/SR build which--according to my calculations--should do about 244dps, fully endurance sustainable.
Blinding Feight = 95%*(50*(100%+93.64%+95%*37.5%*1+15%)*110%+20%*71. 8)*(100%+(100%-81%^4)*20%)*(100%+(100%-81%^2)*20%)
Ablating Strike = 95%*(82.6*(100%+89.92%+95%*37.5%*2+15%)*110%+33%*1 07.1)*(100%+(100%-81%^3)*20%)*(100%+(100%-81%^2)*20%)
Sweeping Strike = 95%*(106.4*(100%+89.92%+95%*37.5%*2+15%)*110%+33%* 107.1)*(100%+(100%-81%^4)*20%)*(100%+(100%-81%^1)*20%)
I believe attacks can only activate on the 0.132-second ticks, so I think we have to round the gap before Ablating Strike up to 0.264 seconds. That hurts the stacking of Blinding Feint, Achilles' Heel and Fury of the Gladiator, and the whole thing starts to fall apart. Basically, top end Dual Blades DPS is critically dependent on getting down to one tick of gap instead of two, which means getting your Ablating Strike recharge below 1.584 seconds, probably with a little margin for error since we've seen evidence that stacking may be just slightly worse than our calculations indicate at extreme levels of recharge.
It looks like when I calculated 238 DPS, I included the activation time for Hasten but not for Practiced Brawler. I guess I was assuming ideal circumstances where you wouldn't need your status protection. Anyway, for Hasten, I just multiply the calculated DPS by 120/(120+0.73). Hmmm, should be 120/(120+(ROUNDUP(0.73/0.132)+1)*0.132). Doing the same on my 238 DPS calculation drops it to 237 DPS. That's still a little overly generous, since activating Hasten will affect the stacking, so interruptions hurt more than just the lost time, but I didn't attempt to estimate that additional loss.
Probably drop another few DPS for activating Practiced Brawler when fighting a Pylon. More if you can't get a perfect run without Aid Self. On the other hand, did we ever say you couldn't use a Tank taunting the pylon? Most of the people in the pylon thread are already measuring best runs instead of average runs, which yields numbers higher than what you'll see in practice most of the time. I guess it all depends on how you personally want to measure DPS.
For comparison purposes, here's the impractical-but-at-least-soft-capped-with-Tough build that I calculated the 237 DPS for. Only the Blinding Feint slotting is different, but it has enough global recharge to lose a tick out of each pause, improving DPS directly but also indirectly by improving the stacking, plus a 22% damage bonus and Assault and a tiny bit of help from a build up proc in Tactics. Hmmm, I should probably slap the Gladiator's Armor in there too. Might be able to get another couple DPS if it takes less effort to soft cap. Anyway, old experiment from before that IO existed if I recall. The build was not specifically optimized for Dual Blades. I made a Super Reflexes DPS template, then simply plugged in different primaries. Specific optimizations might take the DPS a little higher. Real world situations will take it lower.
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Quote:Well, I don't have a Katana/Electric, and don't remember calculating DPS for one. A Dual Blades/Electric placed very high in the Pylon thread. A Katana/Electic could probably do very well too, though I'm guessing not quite as well as Dual Blades/Electric. On the other hand, a Katana/Electric should be more survivable, and look awesome, and...Originally Posted by iBones
Interesting point, precisely why before that combination, kat/elec held my vote, and if im not mistaken, received a rather large rating on the pylon solo. I think Werner did a dps calculation(of someone elses attempt?) and it was fairly high. Of course, this was only even possible due to DA, but its still something that I keep in mind
Why the hell aren't I playing a Katana/Electric? Oooh, fun fun. Must come up with costume.
I think I got mine to 44. The suck never stopped. I'm sure it's a great set and all, but it just wasn't for me.Quote:Originally Posted by Postagulous
I'm deterimined to get a spines to whatever level the suck will stop at.
Taking massive recharge into account plus all procs in actual builds, I calculated these numbers:Quote:Originally Posted by Gaidin
"The Results Are In...", the first thread, takes a flat 250% recharge into account for all attacks to create the highest DPS chains and, even considering this, MA/ does come in close to both Kat/ and DB/... but that is before you factor in the Achilles Heel -Res proc, which MA/ can't use. The gap becomes even wider if you include the FotG -Res proc.
243 DPS Katana/SR at +250% recharge
238 DPS Dual Blades/SR at +279% recharge
216 DPS Martial Arts/SR at +225% recharge
(Not endurance sustainable.) -
Quote:This power combo is not suited to farming. I farm at about 1/3 the speed of a dedicated farmer on my Katana/Dark. I can totally take the damage, but then, I had soft-capped defense before I17. The defense sets aren't strictly better than the resist sets, but I suppose you could say that they're more straightforward to make good, maybe?Originally Posted by Hercules
I've tried copying some aspects of these builds onto my BS/DA scrap. Am I expecting too much, or is this power combo just not suited to farming?
My MA/Shield scrapper is able to gather 2 groups of lev 50-52 enemies ( with settings of me = 8 heroes ) usually taking zero to minimal damage and blowing most of them away with shield charge. The /DA scrapper on the other hand just cant take the damage.
Are defense based sets that much better than resist sets, or am I doing something wrong?
As for "copying some aspects of these builds", your survivability is going to be very strongly impacted by what aspects you're copying. If you're copying 45% or higher defense, you should be very difficult to kill. If you copied "some defense", and ended up at, say, 25%, then you're getting hit five times as often as I get hit. Well, at least by ranged and AoE. I'm assuming you at least have your melee soft capped from Parry. That's not to say you can't make a very survivable build out of 45% melee, 25% ranged and AoE, but it's going to be built and play differently. -
Quote:I know this is a bit off topic, but... you're finding it rough going on a level 35 Broad Sword/Shield??? Did you skip Parry? Quoting myself from another thread, here's a very basic plan for an unkillable Shield character on mostly SOs. With Parry, a single hit will put this build over the melee soft cap. About your only problem should be hitting the seriously uplevel enemies you can survive. For that, I recommend a Kismet Unique and frankenslotting your attacks.Originally Posted by Thremaine
I wouldn't pick /shield as a secondary for first time scrapper like Nemeros is suggesting, unless you are ready to invest heavily on IO sets and also pick aid self. I've currently level 35 broadsword/shields scrapper and it's pretty rough going with just standard IOs and no heals (no medicine pool since tricorders don't fit to concept).
For the OP, if you want solo tanking with no fear of dying, go Dark/Invuln. I do think Fire/Invuln would be fun, though. And really, any/any makes a good scrapper.Quote:Originally Posted by Werner
On Shield Defense, I'm going to do this:
- Slot Deflection and Battle Agility with three defense SOs
- Slot Weave with three defense SOs
- Slot Combat Jumping with one defense SO
- Slot Active Defense with three recharge SOs for a nice margin of error
- Slot a Steadfast Protection unique
- Take Phalanx Fighting
- Use a single small purple inspiration at a time as required
- Never die
OK, yes, that technically isn't "just with SOs", but seriously, you can afford a Steadfast Protection. You just can. And if you're being a stickler, then fine, take Manuevers and slot it with two defense, and you'll get the same thing. I suppose you could say that using inspirations isn't "just with SOs", but I'm betting that 99%+ of the player population uses inspirations while leveling, so I'd call that a nonsense argument.
Those power choices and that slotting puts me at 32.4% defense. One small purple inspiration puts me at 44.9% defense, effectively soft-capped. I have my status protection. Oh, we're done. That's all you need to be almost unkillable in normal content. You can now focus the rest of your build on destroying your enemies, at which it will excel. Now, I DO recommend taking True Grit and at least slotting heal SOs in it. You'll want to take and slot Tough (had to take it to get to Weave anyway). But seriously, making Shield Defense unkillable is just that easy.
But a lot of players probably won't do that. A lot of players will probably have less defense than that. A lot of players probably don't realize how much more important purples are than greens for their survivability. A lot of players don't understand the soft cap. A lot of players are going to find Shield Defense fairly squishy. -
Well, to be fair, Dark Armor is totally weaksauce.
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Quote:Eh, perhaps. But if we're going to emphasize "the right circumstances" then we have to start talking about what someone MEANS by "the best ST damage".Originally Posted by Elegost
-with all the emphasis on this part.Quote:Originally Posted by Werner
and under the right circumstances
Pylons are a good testing point for DPS, but last too long for PRACTICAL DPS, which I'll agree with Nihilii basically means "for AV killing". Your Soul Drain and Against All Odds fuel will find it much easier to survive for the length of an AV fight, so you won't have to gather up a bunch of bosses to pull it off like you might (?) with a pylon run. So against AVs, I doubt it would be much more difficult to set up the right circumstances than Fire/SD. Might need to pull from a couple groups instead of just setting it to x8, but I don't know for sure, and many real missions are kill alls anyway. But I suppose if I introduce REAL missioning, then it's time to add some AoE, and Fire does AoE better than Dark, but that wasn't the question, so I have to draw a line somewhere before I slide down that slippery slope.
I'll also agree with Nihilii that cracking 240 DPS is pretty much going to be a situational event, something with a bunch of "yeah but"s, not a full time cranking through enemy after enemy event. But again, if we're talking about cranking through enemy after enemy, why aren't we talking about AoE and burst instead of DPS? So as I read "best ST damage", we were already talking about "under the right circumstances". I still thought it worth noting, just not worth emphasizing.
I could certainly be wrong, though. The OP is free to define it however he or she wants, and I may well give a different answer as a result.