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Scrapper Guides and FAQs

Advent

By Advent,
Posted on: 2004-09-09 10:22 in Scrappers

 

Posted

i'd love one as well..just dusted off my DA/DM. how fun!

 

Posted

Scrapper Slotting Basics by DistantDeath.

Well worth a read if you want some basic solid thoughts about the why of slotting powers in general and a basic answer on what you should slot the powers of any Scrapper primary or secondary.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

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Posted

Tulzar's regen guide is a busted link. I searched for a copy, and couldn't couldn't couldn't find it, till I found an old google cache. I cleaned it up, and thought I'd post it here.
-Sam


REGENERATION - A Comprehensive Scrapper Guide (Issue 6)

|| Part 1: Introduction ||

I chose Regeneration as my secondary when I made my Scrapper over a year ago because I liked the concept of always having full health and recovering every type of wound imaginable. I discovered early on that Regeneration is a good "beginner" secondary because there's no real way you can pick this set and NOT be an effective Scrapper. That's not to say it's a "secondary for dummies", nor does it mean it won't benefit from a number cruncher's touch. For a more in-depth look at my methodology, check out my first guide on Martial Arts. Since the last few Issues of CoH have come out, Regeneration has changed significantly enough that many of the guides out there are no longer accurate. I never would have written this otherwise, since it's such a popular subject for guides. I will strive to update this the moment a new Issue comes out that affects it.

|| Part 2: How Regen Works ||

Everyone starts out at a base health recovery of 100%. It takes 240 seconds (4 minutes) to heal from 1 HP to full. Your maximum life does not affect how quickly this occurs, as each "tick" of health you recover is 5% of your max. There are 20 ticks, spaced out in 12-second intervals, to get from 1 HP to full by default. For example, if you had 1340 health, each tick would heal 67 HP. The powers I list as "heal rate" under the Status category add directly to your health recovery amount. Thus, Fast Healing would make your base recovery of 100% go up to 175%. This doesn't make each tick heal more health, which is what you may expect. Instead, it reduces the time it takes to get from 1 HP to max. Using Fast Healing as an example, you take 137 seconds to get to max HP (240 / 1.75 = 137). This means your ticks come in 7-second intervals.

Alright, so that's the basics of how Regeneration rates work. But what about when you start adding them together? Well, those percentage boosts that Fast Healing, Integration, and such give are all added right on top of each other. The base healing of FH plus Integration is 325%, which makes you heal from 1 to max in 74 seconds (240 / 3.75 = 74), with 3.7-second tick intervals. Quite an improvement over the base 240-second regeneration rate, eh? So, what about when you put Single Origin enhancements into those powers? SOs are multiplied into the power and the new total is added to your base recovery rate. For example, 3 SO enhancements will double the effectiveness of Fast Healing ((0.33 x 3) + 1 = 1.99), giving it a recovery boost of 150%, the same as an unenhanced Integration (75 x 1.99 = 150). You will want to put 3 SOs in each power that boosts your healing rate in order to be as effective as possible. 3 SOs isn't quite 0.99; due to ED, it's more like 0.95. Close enough. Here are two scenarios of what your regeneration rate may look like: Enhanceable x 3 SO enhs + Unenhanceable = TOTAL

Base | 100 | N/A | 0 | 100 |
Fast Healing | 75 | 150 | 0 | 150 |
Integration | 100 | 200 | 50 | 250 |
GRAND TOTAL | | | | 500 |

This is probably how you will be fighting most of the time. This will make you heal from 1 to full in under a minute. That may still seem like a long time, but keep in mind you also have Reconstruction and Dull pain. If you decide to pick up Health, you'll get a few more seconds shaved off your recovery rate. Enhanceable x 3 SO enhs + Unenhanceable = TOTAL

Base | 100 | N/A | N/A | 100 |
Fast Healing | 75 | 150 | 0 | 150 |
Integration | 100 | 200 | 50 | 250 |
Health | 40 | 80 | 0 | 80 |
Instant Healing| 200 | 400 | 600 | 1000 |
GRAND TOTAL | | | | 1580 |

With Instant Healing on, you should recover all your health in 15 seconds. Ticks will occur less than every second.

|| Part 3: Powers ||

Regeneration has gone through quite a few changes since the game was released, but despite all these "nerfs", Regen still remains a very effective secondary choice. It's a strong set, and I hope to provide you with information to make it as effective as possible. Unlike my MA and EM guides, I won't be leaving as much room for your personal touch with slotting. As a result, I don't feel it's necessary to provide you with a sample build. Before I list the powers, I will describe the format they will be presented in. After the power's name will be a 5-point rank, with 1 being a useless power and 5 being absolutely crucial. Following the name will be a list of statistics. These can be largely ignored if you're not a number cruncher and just want to pick fun powers to use; my desriptions should be explanatory enough for casual gamers to get the jist of them.

| FAST HEALING N/A | Recommended Slots 3x heal | Status +75% heal rate | (auto) |

Fast Healing is a decent power on its own, especially if it was available to other Archetypes, but for a Regeneration Scrapper, it's not as noticeable. But since it's a mandatory power, you'll have it whether you like it or not. And once you have spare slots available, go ahead and throw them in here. If you double the relatively minor bonus it gives you, it becomes even more effective.

| RECONSTRUCTION 4/5 | Recommended Slots 3x heal | 3x recharge rate | Endurance Cost 10.4 endurance | Activation Time 0.7 seconds | Recharge Time 60 seconds | Status +25% heal (self) | Resist (Toxic) |

Reconstruction is a great power made even more useful due to Enhancement Diversification. The reason being that Regen doesn't heal as quickly as it used to and now Reconstruction will fill the gap (relatively well). With 3 recharge rate enhancements it will be available twice per minute, and with 3 heal enhancements it heals nearly half your HP. You will be using this power quite a bit, especially in the early levels when it's your only line of defense.

| QUICK RECOVERY 5/5 | Recommended Slots 3x endurance mod | Status +0.56 endurance per | second recovery | (auto) |
Ah, your own personal Stamina. Many Scrappers, including myself, opted not to even take the Fitness pool thanks to Quick Recovery. This is even more possible now that Instant Healing is no longer an endurance-hungry toggle. If you do decide to take Stamina in addition to QR, you probably won't need to slot it. QR with 3 endurance modification slots is plenty. To compare, an unslotted QR recovers 0.56 endurance per second, while Stamina recovers 0.5 endurance per second, and base recovery is 1.67 endurance per second.

| DULL PAIN 4/5 | Recommended Slots 3x recharge rate | 3x heal | Endurance Cost 10.4 endurance | Activation Time 0.7 seconds | Recharge Time 360 seconds | Duration 120 seconds | Status +40% health boost | +40% heal |

Dull Pain is a great power for Regeneration Scrappers for several reasons. One is that it provides you with a nice heal, which is enhanceable. The second reason is that it raises your max HP by 40% for 2 minutes. Keep that in mind because it means each tick that you regenerate will recover 40% more HP, effectively making you regenerate faster. Half of the 40% health boost is enhanceable, so enhancements are only half as effective for that portion of the power. They will fully enhance the healing portion of the power, which means you can get it to heal you by more than is boosts your max HP. The number that appears above your head is NOT how much it increases your max HP by unless you have no enhancements in the power, so don't be misled. With 3 recharge enhancements in it, it will recharge in 3 minutes, giving you a 1-minute down- time.

I suggest you use this power when needed instead of just clicking it as soon as it recharges; you won't always need it in a fight. One good use of DP is as an alpha strike absorber. Click DP before you charge a particularly hard- hitting Archvillain or large group of mobs to soak up the initial damage and your chances of surviving rise significantly. If you think you can take the alpha but will be crippled by it, hold on to DP and use it as a mid-battle heal for the best effect. Thanks to TopDoc for reminding me of this last point. For a very in-depth look at Dull Pain, check out Stupid_Fanboy's DP Guide. You will find a link in the Works Cited section of the guide.

| INTEGRATION 5/5 | 1x endurance | Recommended Slots 3x heal | Endurance Cost 0.24 endurance per | second (toggle) | Activation Time 3.1 seconds | Recharge Time 10 seconds | Status Resist (mez) | +150% heal rate |

Quite possibly my favorite toggle in the game, Integration is an obvious power to pick up. It will protect you from every status effect that would ordinarily drop your toggles plus more. Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Sleep, and Knockback to be precise. It also increases your healing rate significantly (50% of which is unenhanceable), all for a modest 0.24 EPS. Depending on your primary, how you slotted QR, and if you took any power pool toggles, you might be able to get away with not even slotting any endurance enhancements in this power. But then again, an endurance-heavy build may necessitate a half-and-half split.

| RESILIENCE 2/5 | Recommended Slots 3x resist | Status +5.6% Lethal, Smash | Resist (auto) |

This power isn't all that useful, but it can still come in handy if you've got a power to spare in your build. If you take Tough as well, you can get around 25% resistance to Lethal/Smashing damage, which is nothing to scoff at. I used to think that this power would always protect me from the disorient associated with using an Awaken inspiration, but I have been told that isn't true any longer. This was one of the selling points for me taking the power, so now I recommend Resilience only if you have room for it in your build.

| INSTANT HEALING 5/5 | Recommended Slots 3x recharge rate | 3x heal | Endurance Cost 10.4 endurance | Activation Time 1.1 seconds | Recharge Time 650 seconds | Duration 90 seconds | Status +800% heal rate |

The effectiveness of this power was drastically reduced as of late. It went from being a very expensive toggle that pretty much required you to take the Fitness pool to being a click power with a really long recharge rate. And with Enhancement Diversification, you can't load it up with heal enhancements to get to godly healing rates. Instead, slotting it 3/3 with recharge rate and healing enhancements will give you the most bang for your buck. I generally only use this power just before tackling an Archvillain, a very large crowd of mobs, or when my health takes a nosedive due to adds or some other mid-battle emergency. Slotting it this way will give it a downtime of about 4 minutes, which is decent enough considering that in the past most Regen Scrappers didn't need it on 24/7 in the first place. Since this power isn't as crucial any more, I suggest you work on slotting the majority of your other powers before working on this one.

| REVIVE 2/5 | Recommended Slots 1x heal | Activation Time 4.3 seconds | Recharge Time 300 seconds | Status rez (self) |

This power was changed a bit since I last scrutinized it. I used to think it was a really crappy and useless power. I've been told that it will now revive you and heal you up to 75% of your health and leave you with half an endurance bar. Back when I used it, it was essentially the same as an Awaken, sans disorient effect. Now it can be used in battle, assuming you're on a team and the enemies aren't all hovering right over you. I now have more respect for Revive, and as such, suggest you take it if you have a power to spare. I still don't think you should ever slot it, however. I want to thank Kruton for bringing this to my attention. Keep in mind that while you lose all aggro when you die, Reviving immediately may not be a good idea because enemy AoE/cone attacks can still nail you.

| MOMENT OF GLORY 1/5 | Recommended Slots 1x resist | Endurance Cost 2.6 endurance | Activation Time 2.6 seconds | Recharge Time 1000 seconds | Duration 120 seconds | Status +40% Resist | (all but psy) | +80% Defense | (all but psy) | Resist (mez) | +Special (self) |

Moment of Glory would be an awesome power if it weren't for the fact that it's the antithesis of Regeneration. The whole secondary set relies on recovering health and staying at max life (or close to it) to survive. So what does this power do? Drops you down to 25% health, prevents you from healing, and gives you high damage resist and defense. MoG makes me scratch my head. You can't use Reconstruction while it's active (well you CAN, but it won't do anything) and Integration won't do anything, since MoG comes with resistance to status effects. There have been numerous complaints and threads discussing MoG on the CoH forums since before I can even remember. If you ask me, Instant Healing should be turned into a stronger version of Reconstruction with a longer recharge rate, and Moment of Glory should be turned into what IH is now (with a moderately higher regeneration rate and recharge rate to compensate). That way we have 2 click heals and MoG keeps its namesake while still being true to the whole concept of "Regeneration".

| Fitness (Pool) |

Health will provide you with a +40% heal rate unenhanced, but it's kind of like throwing a match into a bonfire when stacked up next to all the other healing powers you've got. Stamina can help, depending on your primary, but Quick Recovery is adequate in most cases. Fitness is a safe power pool to skip unless your primary choice and/or playstyle really necessitates endurance mitigation.

| Fighting (Pool) |

Tough is a great addition to your defenses. Damage resistance is good for Regeneration Scrappers because normally there's no significant way for you to mitigate all that incoming damage. This will soften the blow, so to speak, and make alpha strikes all the more survivable. Plus, since you won't be taking as much damage with Tough on, you'll be healing back to full in less time.

| Broad Sword (Primary) |

Parry can help you mitigate incoming damage by boosting your defense by a moderate amount. This can help prevent you from taking too many hits all at once, increasing your survivability.

| Katana (Primary) |

Just like BS, Katana has a power (Divine Avalanche) that will boost your defense with a successful hit against an enemy. If you decide to choose either BS or Katana, I would suggest you invest several slots into one of the two defensive attacks in order to give yourself more breathing room to regenerate lost hit points.

| Dark Melee (Primary) |

All of DM's attacks come with an accuracy debuff to the enemy on contact, which amounts to the same thing as what the two swords can provide, albeit to a lesser degree. What Dark Melee has that the other two don't, however, is Siphon Life, an attack that will steal some hit points from an enemy. While not as strong as Reconstruction, it can be great in conjunction with it. With a few heal enhancements in it, Siphon Life can be quite enticing. In addition to SL, DM also has Dark Consumption, which will recover 33% of your endurance per enemy it connects with. This means with several mobs surrounding you, you can go from an empty bar to full in no time flat. While this is kind of overkill for a Regeneration Scrapper, it ensures that you will NEVER be at a loss for endurance, and that Stamina is very much a skippable power.

|| Part 4: Closing ||

Thanks to all those who critiqued my guide and helped me to refine it. I want to thank everyone who provided suggestions, as I made several changes thanks to your input. The addition of the discussion of primary sets is due entirely to Menjaran's suggestion! If you find any errors with the numbers I gave, please, please, please let me know! I strive to make this guide as accurate as possible! You can reach me via private message on either the CoH forums or in the game. My Global Chat handle is @Tulzar, and you can also drop me an e-mail in CoH or at fungah@gmail.com.

| Works Cited |

Dull Pain Guide: post ED & i6 by Stupid_Fanboy, 01-17-06 http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...Number=4528638 Immortal-Nite's Regen Rates Guide - Issue 4 by ImmortalNite, 01-15-06 http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...Number=2820061 CoH/CoV Character Builder by Sherkhan (Sherk Silver), 01-10-06 http://home.comcast.net/~SherkSilver/index.html

| Legal |

Copyright 2006 Eric Gross. The text enclosed herein is the sole ownership of Eric Gross, fungah@gmail.com. This guide is intended for free use on the internet and may be distributed at no cost on the condition that the original author is contacted, given appropriate citation and the guide is in no way altered. All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.

 

Posted

Anyone have a guide for MA/Invuln?

 

Posted

Perhaps my search-foo is weak, but are there any good Claws / DA guides I-7 or later?

Thinking of rolling one up, as im looking for something new -- played INV and REGEN to death, and think that Claws / DA could be serious fun.

Thanks

 

Posted

Can some one please make a updated Broadsword/regen? I dont know if I can use the I5 ones no more

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Can some one please make a updated Broadsword/regen? I dont know if I can use the I5 ones no more

[/ QUOTE ]

EvilGeko's I8 BS/Regen guide: Serve, Protect, Kill is all you ever need to know about big swords and super-fast healing. Be sure to click the link to the I7 version at the top of the thread for the bulk of the guide's information.

 

Posted

Reminder not only for Lighthouse and his crew but anyone looking for SR guides in general. My SR guide (linked in my sig) is still up-to-date. If any powers receive major upgrades I'll revise my guide with a new version.