DP's Katana/SR. See it to believe it! Version 1.1
By
BanzaiBadger,
Posted on: 2006-01-31 18:00 in Player Guides
I'm sorry but with ED, how can you suggest putting more than 3 of one kind of enhancement?
Not to be a killjoy, but you do know about ED right? 
The little patch that they did a while back to make perma-Hasten impossible and every enhancement beyond 3 of one type of Single only add 5%?
Basically makes anything beyond three of one type of Enhancement (say three Damage Singles) not worth slotting. Three give about 95%. Four 100%, five 105%, and six 110%. Not really worth all those slots for just 15% more.
Also, if you're skipping Divine Avalanche on a Katana/SR, you're shooting yourself in the foot. 
I moved slots off of Sting to slot Divine out with 1 Acc, 3 Def, 2 Dam it's that good. Easily gives you 25 to 30% defense to Melee and Lethal if you stack its buff twice.
Edit: Here ya go with a ED compliant build. Did a lot of number crunching, and with the Ancillary I took this's pretty optimized. My Katana/SR is 42 and climbing fast, so it seems to work well.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#4357983
"I'm flying free with my beautiful butterfly wings!" ~ Randy Marsh
This is what I find to be suitable for my character. If you have any suggestions please post them.
Just did, mate! You're going to get STOMPED in the upper levels set like that. +2s and +3s still give Steel a real challenge, and I've worked the numbers as best I can with the current limits we've been given.
"I'm flying free with my beautiful butterfly wings!" ~ Randy Marsh
I played with Divine Avalanche and the def buff I recieved from it was too short for my liking. Therefore, I cut it out, and put the enhancemts to my def... I know the def gain is minimal, but like I was saying I wanted max def. I also wanted this character to be single target oriented... Divine Avalanche's animation was too long for my liking and with the Hasten-Quickness combination it makes my SD and GD recharge very fast... To me Divine Avalanche had little use in my build for high-dmg high-def...
ps I know there is know more perma-Hasten... if I didn't I would've been talkin about Perma-Elude 
Haha about getting stomped... I have that build and just the other day was fightin +3 Nem with lieuts and bosses. It's a sad story but the tank in our group of 7 decided to aggro 2 goups of about 10 or so. So there's about 20 baddies, they launch the first wave attacks on him and he dies. I hit elude killed 3/4 of them and kept the aggro... The whole team died 
except for me and a def who ran to the elevators... I'm not saying that I can out tank a Tank... but this build has done me great so far... Even in PvP... with Purples of course
I forgot to mention I am also lvl 42
Find me some ED compliant numbers for your Def and post them, I would like to see them if you can, thanks... since we are similar levels we can compare percentages
The Tank might have had a weak build and I would've liked to see how it was slotted... thanks for the comments though, anything that would help me is great
The test will be if you can take out two +3 Warhulks WITHOUT Elude as a crutch.
Steel with the build I use, can drop two +3s alone. It's hairy and down to the wire a lot of the times if I don't use Elude or Inspirations, but I can do it about 80% of the time. That other 20% is of course due to Lady Luck being sadistic.
Not being mean, you're just not optimally slotted or set up for defense. Being as this's a build/guide section, people don't wanna get the wrong idea and end up with wasted slots or powers.
Hell, I don't care if people HATE my build! But they can still learn a lot from it. It's rock solid, numbers wise. Ya want vertical, drop Calling The Wolf for Hover. That's seriously the only thing you could change to be more "effective".
I'm odd in that while I love a concept (Steel's just a super fast samurai, no other flashy stuff at all), I build for all out PvE pwnage. Hasten's not up often enough to be reliable for me, the slots are better used elsewhere, ya don't need it if you've got a complete attack chain, etc... List goes on an on.
Again, I've run this for all 42 levels, through (my god has it been that many?) four respecs, and the build I'm using is what's come out of the grinder. This isn't a pipe dream or untested respec, this version of Steel's no stranger to the Crash Site. Trick's to squeeze every single bit of effectiveness out of every power you take. Otherwise what was the point of taking it at all? Could say RP, I guess, but when have you ever met a samurai whose hands glowed?
"I'm flying free with my beautiful butterfly wings!" ~ Randy Marsh
Haha... I should also remind you this was pre-ED and I will be taking slots off of health and stamina... now where will i put them. If you look at my build I really have no need to put them elsewhere... I might cap out on more def through Lucky... even though it is minimal it helps... That leaves me with 3 more slots... 2 of those will go on Build-Up and one will go on elude
I might consider putting 3 end reducs on each of my toggles due to ED... that should give me more attack time
thanks for the help
I updated my build to be more ED compliant... should be better.. the new def numbers are 31.3% def for melee and ranged and 47.5% def for AoE.
Whoa there Chester, might wanna update your Hero Planner. I'd do 3 Recharge, 3 Defense on Elude ASAP. Stealth isn't worth slotting for Defense, the already miniscule amount is cut in half when it's suppressed. Also, Phase Shift isn't perma, it's only good for 30 seconds a shot. Chances are if you aim to use it as an escape power and can't fire off Elude, it won't matter. You'll already be dead.
Again, maybe for PvP you need Hasten, who knows. But you seriously don't need it for PvE with a Katana/SR. 1 Recharge on five good attacks and Quickness. Bam. S'all you need. Doesn't matter at all if I can't use Golden or Soaring Dragon quite as fast, Flashing Steel and Lotus kill with some vicious area damage. Wounded stuff won't last long in your killzone if you use em right.
Hasten USED to be awesome for spamming one or two attacks over and over and over. But it's not even all that hot at doing that anymore. You'd still be better off with 2 Recharge and Quickness. That's up ALL the time. 1 Acc, 3 Dam, 2 Recharge. Then ya can throw three Recharge on Conserve Power, and 3 End Redux, 3 ToHit Buffs on Focused Accuracy (the single best power from Body Mastery). So again, why five slots and two power choices for Hasten and Super Speed? /SR already has a built in version of Super Speed.
If you're trying for a solid PvP build, you should have taken Teleport Foe and Focused Accuracy in there somewhere, so I'm not sure WHAT you're going for.
(Only takes two Recharges and Quickness to make Brawler permanent.)
"I'm flying free with my beautiful butterfly wings!" ~ Randy Marsh
Thanks... But as I was saying, this is High Def/High Dmg... I can get my high SD and GD off alot more... thus more dmg against single targets... The main point of this build is optimum Boss killing... It is also a build I used for PvP... no losses yet and I have fought broadsword and katana/regens... with the SD and GD firing more often, regens can't regen... as for Focus Acc, if I substitute that for phase and slot it 2 tohit buff and 2 end reduc which I would take from Stealth... I can then either knock off my Acc enhancements on my attacks and place a recharge reduc or an end reduc on them... this will give me less down time either way
Concept wise, I can see where you're going here, man.
But you shouldn't have taken Katana then, really. Broadsword also wouldn't have been a good choice, cuz to optimally use them you want to go with heavy area to supplement your two big hits.
I still kill bosses quite fast, and anything around them while I'm doing it. When you Flashing Steel or Lotus on a boss not only are you damaging him, but you also hit five to ten other potential targets.
Again, you do not NEED Hasten and such to speed up Soaring Dragon or Golden Dragonfly in PvE. By the time that first boss is dead, my area damage alone has killed or dropped below half life any minions who were near me. Then you just Soaring or Dragonfly each once to kill em.
This is also a much more endurance efficient way to play, you don't take near the number of attacks relying on singletargets does to kill a group of enemies.
Again, this isn't the case in PvP. I can see where having Dragon and Dragonfly for knockdown/up fast as you can are handy, but fighting any PvP opponent worth his salt you're going to need a LOT more tricks than just those two attacks. Squishies will simply never give you a chance to get close at all if they're any good at all. And Tankers and Scrappers will use their considerable resists to hammer the hell out of you and not flinch. In the latter case, it'll come down to how fast you can detoggle them with Brawl. And while you're trying to do that, they'll be beating the crap out of you with Build Up and Insights.
If you're serious about PvP I'd snag Teleport Foe and or Web Grenade to deal with Hover snipers, Focused Accuracy and maybe Tough to survive Stalkers and their evil AS (they can probly oneshot an SR Scrapper easy, the resists only kick in AFTER our life drops to a set point), and you maybe want Assault for the slight damage and mez boosts it gives too.
Which gives you such an odd and power hungry build that apart from lone Bosses in PvE, you really won't be taking full advantage of either SR or Katana. Groups will take way longer to kill, and you'll be stuck using large attacks on minions you could have killed with a ping of area damage. Basically you'll run out of juice faster solo.
Never saw a point in building for PvP, I'm still running with the maximum Defense values possible while wisely using slots. And I didn't have to give up on any PvE ability for a facet of the game that most people loathed due to gankers. Maybe come fifty, I'll respec for PvP, but I doubt it. They're talking about upping the cap to level 60, some day.
(A LOT of Regen/Broadsword people I've personally run into are the type who only took the sets because they heard they were "l33t", usually can't play tactically for crap. It's the Rad/Rad or Archery/Devices Hover snipers you gotta watch out for, they'll eat an SR scrapper alive.)
"I'm flying free with my beautiful butterfly wings!" ~ Randy Marsh
I understand what you're saying and agree for the most part... SR is not meant to be a powerhouse in the PvP... but I made my build by knowing 2 facts... I wanted to be able to kill fast and I wanted to do it without being hit. I understand your concept with flashing steel and lotus drops... those are 2 great powers, but...
I team a lot, and why bother with a low dmg cone attack when I have AoE's from blasters killing all the mins. Even if I didn't team as much as I do now, I still wouldn't pick it up. Lotus is all the AoE I need. It comes back twice as fast and deals more total damage.
It just makes more sense to me to put the slots I would use for flashing steel, elsewhere, such as hasten or even recharge reducs on my attacks like Lotus, SD, GD. The faster these powers come back, the more effective and efficient I am.
My attack chain is Build-up, GD, SD, Lotus, Sting, then GD again if I time it right. That's all before Build-Up wears off... I can post the numbers on that if you want. But that is only possible with Hasten. So by the time I'm done with my 5 attacks, most of the enemies are dead. If they are not, well, I still have SD to take out the Lieuts and Sting to finish the mins and for the last few standing Lotus again...
Now as for PvP, you have great ideas... my last build I had petrifying gaze. I slotted it up a bit and that took care of the flying heroes.
With this build, I didn't really design it around PvP. There's just certain things that would be good for it in this build. First, you can get your stronger attacks off more often, combine this with build-up, say goodnight to your regens. This might also be suitable for knocking off /Inv due to the quick recharge because of hasten. Adding Hoverfly, PG, or Web Grenade would definately make this more effective in PvP.
If you have a build that's PvP oriented I would like to see it... if not no biggie.
Thanks!
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I'm sorry but with ED, how can you suggest putting more than 3 of one kind of enhancement?
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Excuse my ignorance..still new to CoX but what is ED and whats it all about??
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I'm sorry but with ED, how can you suggest putting more than 3 of one kind of enhancement?
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Excuse my ignorance..still new to CoX but what is ED and whats it all about??
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ED was what the devs called "Enhancement Diversification", part of a patch awhile back that made it not worth slotting more than 3 of any type of SO. (DO's and TO's are still okay). Basically the maximum buff you can get for any ONE aspect of a power is just under 100%, slot a fourth SO and you'll get a much smaller bonus, like 5% per SO.
Would slotting say 3 SO's and the remaining 3 slots with DO's of the same type (End redux) for example equate to more than 6 of the same SO though?
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Would slotting say 3 SO's and the remaining 3 slots with DO's of the same type (End redux) for example equate to more than 6 of the same SO though?
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No, you can not trick Ed by mixing DOs and SOs.
3 SOs is (effectivly) the max. Adding more DOs after that would infact contribute less then over slotting with SOs
Lets hope that I8 comes with a respec token then..I'm gonna need it.
Thanks for the help
Katana... underrated, maybe. Super Reflexes... underrated, definately!
P.S. do not attempt to tank Devouring Earth. If you're a SR and have already faced them, you know why. No, but this power is really helpful if your team is running low or has zero Tanks. Your squishy teammates will love you for it. If you find yourself in over your head, hit Elude. Problem solved. But remember, you have 2 mins of tanking, then it is RLH. What if Elude isn't charged? That's when you hit your back-up panic button. Phase Shift. Problem solved, for the most part.
Now, before I get started, I would just like to let everyone know that IMHO this is my favorite scrapper build. To play as a SR scrapper, there is one main thing to remember. Patience. The time will come when you can "hang" with the other scrapper powersets.
Another thing I would like to mention and agree with is that /Invuln is a much easier scrapper to play as. I'm not taking any credit away from them what-so-ever, I am just saying that /Invulns see improvements much sooner than a SR would. This is simply because the numbers are right in front of you. It is easy to see that with T.I. on the enemy does 6 damage, with it off, it does 9 damage. That is not the case with when you're a SR. The results are much more suttle and relatively go unnoticeable the first few levels. But, they are there. You will see them more so when you hit level 12 and get your DO's and so on.
First off, this build is for a level 50 Katana/SR. I do not suggest you to try to follow this build exactly from level 1 to 50. This build is meant for Respec, I cannot stress that more. 1 attack till level 18 would be excruciating for a scrapper, who is, well, intended to "scrap."
This is also intended to be a mostly high-power, single-target based build. It is great for taking out Bosses quickly and can "one hit" mostly any minion. It is also meant to give you the most defense possible by picking power pools that will coincide with the SR powerset itself.
An example of this would be choosing to go with the Speed power pool instead of Leaping or Flight. There are a few simple reasons for this:
One reason would be Hasten - This power combined with Quicken makes for perma-Practiced Brawler. The only slotting that is needed to be done is on Hasten and I didn't bother slotting it till level 39. Also, since there is only 4 attacks in this build, it will help your high damage attacks like Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly recharge much faster. I suggest keeping Hasten on auto-click.
Another reason would be because of Super Speed. This will save you slots because instead of slotting SS to make it faster, you can put those slots on your defensive powers where they will be more helpful. SS itself is a fast travel power, but combined with Quicken and one SO speed enhancement on Quicken, Sprint, and SS, you will be hitting 95mph with no slotting. Also I suggest you to take Hurdle instead of Swift. This makes traveling much easier.
Another power pool I chose was Concealment. This power pool is good for one main reason:
Stealth. It grants you 2.5% def both melee and ranged. Remember, we're a trying to get the most defense we can.
Invisibility is just a fill power and Phase Shift is rarely used. But if the situation is right and I don't have Elude charged, it's a good "panic" power.
I also chose Provoke because, well, I like to tank
Finally, here is my build. Remember, this build is meant to be a high-defense, high-damage, Boss-killing and AV worthy Scrapper. (I'll get back to you on the whole AV thing)
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Exported from Ver: 1.7.5.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
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Name: Name ?
Level: 50
Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Katana
Secondary: Super Reflexes
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01) --> Sting of the Wasp==> Rechg(1)Dmg(3)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(5)Dmg(7)
01) --> Focused Fighting==> DefBuf(1)DefBuf(7)DefBuf(9)EndRdx(9)EndRdx(11)EndRdx(11)
02) --> Focused Senses==> DefBuf(2)DefBuf(13)DefBuf(13)EndRdx(15)EndRdx(15)EndRdx(17)
04) --> Agile==> DefBuf(4)DefBuf(17)DefBuf(19)DefBuf(19)DefBuf(21)DefBuf(21)
06) --> Hasten==> Rechg(6)Rechg(23)Rechg(23)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)Rechg(27)
08) --> Hurdle==> Jump(8)
10) --> Practiced Brawler==> Rechg(10)
12) --> Build Up==> Rechg(12)Rechg(27)Rechg(29)
14) --> Super Speed==> Run(14)
16) --> Health==> Heal(16)Heal(29)Heal(31)
18) --> The Lotus Drops==> Rechg(18)Dmg(31)Dmg(31)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20)EndMod(34)EndMod(34)
22) --> Dodge==> DefBuf(22)DefBuf(34)DefBuf(36)DefBuf(36)DefBuf(36)DefBuf(37)
24) --> Quickness==> Run(24)
26) --> Soaring Dragon==> Rechg(26)Dmg(37)Dmg(37)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)
28) --> Lucky==> DefBuf(28)DefBuf(40)DefBuf(40)DefBuf(40)DefBuf(42)DefBuf(42)
30) --> Stealth==> EndRdx(30)DefBuf(48)DefBuf(48)
32) --> Golden Dragonfly==> Rechg(32)Dmg(42)Dmg(43)Dmg(43)Dmg(43)Dmg(45)
35) --> Evasion==> DefBuf(35)DefBuf(45)DefBuf(45)EndRdx(46)EndRdx(46)EndRdx(46)
38) --> Elude==> Rechg(38)Rechg(50)
41) --> Invisibility==> DefBuf(41)
44) --> Provoke==> Acc(44)
47) --> Focused Accuracy==> EndRdx(47)TH_Buf(48)EndRdx(50)TH_Buf(50)
49) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(49)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
01) --> Critical Hit==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
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What people have to realize about SR is that it is a very well rounded secondary powerset to have as a Scrapper. It is great against melee, ranged, and even better for AoE based enemies. I'm not to sure if these numbers are still correct so please reply if they are not, but it offers 31.3% def against both melee and ranged, and also, 47.5% def against AoE's. Not too bad! Another thing, this offers defense against AV's because it has no element specific based defensive powers, such as psionic. It's just melee, ranged, and AoE. I'm not saying you won't need to hit Elude while fighting one or "pop" some purples, because it happens. As it does with any other powerset. I suggest to hit Elude, attack the AV for 1 minute and 50 seconds, then hit SS and RUN! Wait for your toggles to come back then go in again. It also possible to attack first with just your toggles then if you know when the AV is going to use his "kill all" power, you can hit Elude. Most of the time this should protect you. But I can't guarentee it.
Thank you very much for reading and if you have any questions about anything I've written, my power choices, or my slotting, please ask. I appreciate it.
I am completely open for suggestions, comments, criticism (please take it easy on me lol), and of course... PRAISE!! haha I haven't seen anyone post a Katana/SR on any of these boards (but if there is one please send it to me) let alone too much on SR.
Thank You so much, especially CP for all your help and suggestions. CP DP AND ROBB 4L!!!!
Sorry for my outburst.
ENJOY!
ps I will also post a pre-Respec form of my build to level 24 if anyone would find it helpful.