Ian's Guide to the AoE Scrapper (Spine/Dark)
By
Alexandras,
Posted on: 2007-01-04 24:13 in Player Guides
Nice guide.
Probably worth mentioning that almost all players find DA unplayable without Knockback/down resistance from either Acrobatics or Hover.
I would put in a good word for Throw Spines though. It does more Damage than Spines Burst and has larger Debuffs. It covers an area large enough to get all the Critters in a Spawn in the positions you find them standing in and it recharges fast.
The way I try to maximise my AE damage on a normal pack of Critters in their initial standing position is by carefully choosing my line of approach and by queuing my attacks.
Try to pick a Critter on the far side of the Spawn with equal number on either side of the line between you and the targeted Critter. Close in to a comfortable distance just outside aggro range. Hit Build Up, Follow and queue Throw Spines. You will fire Throw Spines at the maximum range and if you have the furthest Critter targeted you should cover most of the pack of Critters. As soon as you see the Throw Spines fire off hit Spine Burst. This should get Spine Burst to go off just before you get to the target Critter, again getting a good proportion of the pack in the AE.
If you have Death Shroud and Quills running at the same time then hopefully that will leave you with either a pack of KOed Critters or give you just a little clean up to do.
Cloak of Darkness is a fairly situational power, if you can avoid the situations it would be useful for then you can not take it with little downside.
Cloak of Fears 5% To Hit debuff is actually pretty good for an AE power on a melee character, but as a total package I find CoF a little under powered. If it hit a little more often or Cowered Minions and LTs like the Brute version then I would be more excited about it.
Oppressive Glooms Stun is Mag two so unless you have additional Stun Mag from somewhere it will only Stun Minions. On the other hand Minions will be 50%+ of the Damage in any Spawn so that is still very useful. Also two DA Scrappers with Oppressive Gloom will make a Mag 4 Stun which will Stun Bosses, mmm gravy train.
Regards, Screwloose.
I am not young enough to know everything.
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The Atomic Hedgehog, my poor spines/dark scrapper, feels awfully squishy at level 9. I'm planning on taking Haste at 10 to kill them before they can kill me. Right now I have:
Lunge
Spine Burst
Impale
Dark Embrace
Death Shroud
I plan on using Super Jump for my travel power. Is taking Haste at 10 a good idea?
well, you have 3 attacks that you need to click and have a recharge, so hasten would help you get those powers faster. however, your'e also saying you get killed fast. maybe you hsould get another shield or play with a defender 
Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)
Build Up is another possibility. Increasing the damage that your Spine Burst and Death Shroud do will shorten the time the Critters you are fighting live and lessen the amount of damage you take.
Regards, Screwloose.
I am not young enough to know everything.
How to Look Stuff Up Yourself - It's Fun and Easy
Looking for Powers Numbers try City of Data.
For Fraks sake read the Guides and FAQs
Global Chat Channels - Australia
oops, forgot to mention that I have build up. 
When it's up, things are a much easier.
I think my problem is that I dive in thinking that I'm going to take those 3 yellow or orange Lts along with the 7 or so white/yellow minions. Perhaps I just need to set my sights a little lower, but I'm always *this* close to finishing all the SOBs off, so I stick around trying to beat them to the KO rather than running.
What can I say? I'm a scrapper!
Pretty good guide here. I play a 33 Spines/Dark Armor Scrapper myself, they're pretty interesting heroes. While you can specialize them in different ways, it's also possible to break them.
I broke mine in a couple ways before I finally got it to "work":
1) Spines/Dark Armor Scrappers require Stamina and Acrobatics. You can not function with Endurance Reducers alone - I tried, too many toggles, I barely get by with endurance reducers AND stamina. You can't afford to get knocked around, as that both prevents your AOE from being where it needs to be and prevents you from firing off that Dark Regeneration when you really need it. Thus, you're going to be 6 power slots short, and this makes it a late-maturing set.
Is Dark Armor worth all this? Sometimes, I think I'd be better off with a Regen secondary. However, looking at it again, I realize that Dark Armor does have the benefit of:
* Near Invulnerability-level defense against most types of damage.
* Higher than Invulnerability-level defense against psionic and some kinds of energy damage.
* Better than Regen-level hitpoint regeneration with a well slotted and hastened Dark Regeneration power.
That six slot flexibility penalty comes with a sheer potency trade-off.
2) It's possible to specialize on having too much AOE. I had a build that just had Lunge, Spine Burst, Quills, and Death Shroud as his offensive powers. Sure, the minions died fast enough, but it took way too long to take down those bosses and lieutenants. The Scrappers' role is primarily to take down the toughest targets - that's why there's a higher critical hit chance the higher ranked the target is. An AOE-specialized Scrapper goes against their primarily role somewhat, I can always leave the minions to the Blasters, Warshades, and Peacebringers - not that minions were ever much of a threat.
Currently, I have a multi-role specialized Spines/Dark Scrapper. Not too much AOE, not too little. His attack powers are: Lunge, Impale, Ripper, Throw Spines, and Death Shroud. It's still not quite enough single target potency, because Impale and Ripper both have some pretty long animation times. Because of this, Hasten is only really useful for getting my Build Up and Dark Regeneration powers to cycle faster.
Thoughts for a respec: I might go with Barb Swipe, Lunge, Spine Burst, Ripper, Death Shroud, and Quills as my primary attack powers. Three single target attacks for the bosses taking up all of my animation time (which is why no impale - no time to use it), two toggled on zero-animation time AOE toggles to down the minions quick, spine burst in case the two toggle aren't quite quick enough. (Maybe instead of Spine Burst get Impale as it's handy when a minion runs.)
Geldon, good advice. the exact same thing happened to me for a while in your 2). I could kill minions and ltnts with ease, but a boss would often beat me cause the aoes would take forever to take him down. When I got to 50 i hadn't even slotted my single target attacks at all. However, with a respec and when I started bringing HOEs into my build it really helped to make it all come together.
Unfortunately, this style scrapper is very easy to break and when broken it seems really hard to fix. But if you find a build that works well for it, it works extremely well.
Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)
I just stumbled across your Guide. Thanks for the Tips. I will be rolling a Spines/DA tonight.
Very nice, except I don't see the need to run 3 end reduction in the armor toggles (Dark Embrace, Murky Cloud, Obsidian Shield). The whole lot together costs less than Quills or Death Shroud. Lunge and Impale are fairly cheap attacks. I slot a bit more damage and try to kill stuff faster, plus a bit more end reduction in Dark Regen. It's an end-heavy build, but 3 end in a toggle costing 0.1 end per second seems like overkill.
Do you really slot 3 end reduction in Combat Jumping? Cost 0.03 end per second?
Currently a lvl 37 spines/dark. Good guide. I agree with most of what was said but feel the Oppressive Gloom is MUCH more useful then Cloak of Fear. With CoF the baddie will come out of fear often enough to attack you several times before your aoe's can kill them off. With OG they are pretty much stunned til death. I also find Throw Spines very important to my build. It is very strong and you will kill much faster using it.
I didn't run all the endurance numbers for everything, I slotted without seeing the numbers behind powers and am going to go more in depth when inventions come out. This was mostly an overview of the powers and how i feel each one contributes or not to the combination.
Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)
Just thought I'd add that Air Superiority adds tremendously to this build's survivability. (I know its been said to death, but needed to be here as well) The ability to keep a boss off his feet and not attacking you is fantastic. My boss attack chain is AS, Lunge, Ripper. I slotted AS and Lunge for recharge, and have those as my two single targets attacks (I respecced out of Impale once I got Ripper)
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Very nice, except I don't see the need to run 3 end reduction in the armor toggles (Dark Embrace, Murky Cloud, Obsidian Shield). The whole lot together costs less than Quills or Death Shroud. Lunge and Impale are fairly cheap attacks. I slot a bit more damage and try to kill stuff faster, plus a bit more end reduction in Dark Regen. It's an end-heavy build, but 3 end in a toggle costing 0.1 end per second seems like overkill.
Do you really slot 3 end reduction in Combat Jumping? Cost 0.03 end per second?
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Consider that those are all Hamidon enhancements, so the double-benefit is inherent. I don't know if there are defbuff/jump Hammies, but so defbuff/endredux in Combat Jumping makes sense, same with the shields.
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Very nice, except I don't see the need to run 3 end reduction in the armor toggles (Dark Embrace, Murky Cloud, Obsidian Shield). The whole lot together costs less than Quills or Death Shroud. Lunge and Impale are fairly cheap attacks. I slot a bit more damage and try to kill stuff faster, plus a bit more end reduction in Dark Regen. It's an end-heavy build, but 3 end in a toggle costing 0.1 end per second seems like overkill.
Do you really slot 3 end reduction in Combat Jumping? Cost 0.03 end per second?
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They're actually 0.2 per second, and CJ is 0.06. When you get end numbers off CoD, make sure you divide by the activate period.
They haven't updated the links to guides yet so here's a link to my newer version of this guide.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...Number=8448268
Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)
Charging headfirst into a mob of 15 +3 enemies, unleashing a torrent of poisonous spears in all directions, killing all but the boss before your teammates have a chance to rush in. Watching your health drift steadily down only to spring back to full. Enemies cowering around you, unable to attack as numbers stream rapidly above their heads. If that sounds fun to you, then this is how you do it. My play style is an extremely foolhardy one. I rush in and hope I kill everyone before they can kill me. I do die, but only when I make stupid mistakes of my own. Thats the kind of play this build is tailored to.
This was a very hard build for me to play. Until around lvl 30 I was very weak and couldnt do anything impressive when I was solo. Until the build is complete its unimpressive. But when all the powers combine and their slotted properly its a beauty to behold and even better to play. Enemies fall around you like butter on the sun. There is nothing you dont have a defense against, no Achilles tendon. Because of this the developers gave you less resistance than most sets, but the rest of the powers more than make up for it.
There are many other ways to play this build. A friend of mine didnt take any of the AoE powers and focused on single target attacks. I have no idea why. I chose these sets because I wanted someone who focuses on AoEs. If thats what you want to try, then the advice below should help you. But I recommend you read other guides to get multiple opinions on the sets.
These are just my opinions and my slotting for the powers I took. I'm not saying you should do exactly as I've done, just letting you know why I did it. It would be rather difficult to emulate this build, because it's my favorite hero and it's the one that got the most HO loving.
I wanted to build an AoE centered character, and a friend suggested these two sets. I looked into them and decided it would be fun, especially since back then nobody played DA since it would be more of a challenge. So of course, my build suggestions are made with AoEs in mind. Bot would probably give you different suggestions since he didn't take any of the AoE powers on his spiner.
To start off, here's my opinions on each of the spine powers.
Barb Swipe - This is a pretty lame power. It has a long animation and small amounts of damage. I skipped it outright, after making the mistake of taking the similar power on my claw scrapper.
Lunge - Seeing as you have to take this or Barb Swipe, I suggest choosing this. Animation is shorter than BS and does more damage. The longer recharge might be rough for a low lvl, but once you get a few powers it won't be noticable at all.
Spine Burst - A great AoE. With a larger area than the toggle AoE damage powers, and does more damage for the hits. Also has a nice slow to it that will keep enemies closer to you if they're trying to run away.
Build Up - I've never known anyone not to take build up. Boosts your damage for a few seconds (which for this build is considerable, since it affects alot of targets).
Impale - A nice ranged power for taking down flyers and keeping runners from getting too far away. Can also pull other mobs towards you.
Confront - I originally used this power to pull other mobs to me to keep as many in the AoEs as possible, but found that Impale does that job just as well and also has numerous other beneficial qualities (damage, immob, -fly) that made it worth taking in place of this.
Quills - A nice AoE that continually hits enemies and reduces their speed and recharge. In an AoE centered build this is crucial.
Ripper - Since I'm all about AoE's it means I'm always in the middle of mobs. With enemies stacked around me this power works very well, since it has a small cone that usually hits 2 or 3 enemies for a large amount of damage.
Throw Spines - I didn't take this power because in order to use it most effectively I would have to jump out of the mob, cast it, then jump back in. But the damage from this wouldn't be enough to outdo the other damage I'd normally be doing already in the center. It could be used when first jumping into the mob, but I didnt feel it was worth taking, as my build was very full and it wouldnt be used often.
Dark Armor Powers
Dark Embrace - You have to take this power. You should take it anyways, it resists the most common damage types in the game.
Death Shroud - Another nice AoE that does damage that is rarely resisted. Larger DoT than Quills, works great along with it.
Murky Cloud - Resistance to more damage. This damage isn't as common as the Dark Embrace ones, but they do happen and it's nice to not get hit as for as much damage. Also the resistance to End Drain makes sappers not an issue, for you at least.
Obsidian Shield - The mez resistance power. Take it, wear it with pride. Also a nice psionic resistance, so you can take over in those rare missions when your teammates cry at their inability to stand up to squishy little psionic enemies.
Dark Regeneration - This is the best self heal in the game, in my opinion. If it hits one person you get about 1/3 of your health back. So hitting 3 or more enemies with it will fully heal you. It also does some damage, but I wouldn't recommend slotting for that. Recharge so you can heal more often (you'll need it if you play like I do) and endurance reductions are the way to go. It starts off at 33.8 endurance per use, which is 1/3 of your bar in an already end heavy set.
Cloak of Darkness - This power is extremely skippable. A slight bit of defense. If you plan to PVP it's helpful against stalkers and stealthers, and lets you get a sneak attack start, but in PVE it's not that helpful unless you want to stealth through missions. Also it provides the immobilize resistance that Obsidian lacks. Its got a very nice aesthetic appeal because it completely removes all your costume components aside from your aura, which has a neat look to it.
Cloak of Fear - This power made me keep my character. Until around lvl 30 or whenever i got it, I couldn't survive solo against orange mobs of 5 or more(before I got powerful attacks too). With this power, even before getting it slotted I was in crey's folly soloing those groups of 10+ orange mobs. The -Acc that this power kicks out is extremely helpful.
Oppressive Gloom - Similar to CoF this power will stop enemies from hitting you. The damage you take from it is minimal (60 damage every 2 seconds maximum now if youre hitting 10 enemies). It is a powerful stun that keeps everyone from attacking you, which is very helpful for everyone on the team.
Funnily enough, before max targets came into the game, we once had so many enemies herded and stacked in small spot that this power was killing me, without a single enemy attacking me. This is no longer possible.
Soul Transfer - When I'm on this alt I feel very powerful. I can kill 20 minions in a few seconds. This also makes me play rather haphazardly and I sometimes get over my head trying to maximize the number of enemies near me. So I die. Then I kick this power on and they're all stunned for a minute or so while I get my ground back. This power is skippable, but when you do die it's nice to pick up right there rather than make the trip from the hospital.
Below is my current build on live. I can't remember when I took each power, but it shows what I felt was most important to slot and I'll say a bit about that too.
lunge - 2 acc, 2 damage, 2 end reducs
spine burst - 3 acc/dam, 3 end reducs
quills - 3 acc/dam, 3 end reducs
build up - 3 recharge, 1 end reduc
ripper - 1 acc/dam, 1 dam, 1 acc, 2 end reducs
impale - 2 dam/range, 2 acc, 2 end reducs
Alot of endurance use comes from the attacks, so I was sure to slot them well for it, filling in acc and dam along with those. The powers I use the most get the most end reductions.
dark embrace - 3 resist/end reducs
death shroud - 3 dam/accs, 3 end reducs
murky cloud - 3 resist/end reducs
obs shield - 3 resist/end reducs
dark regen - 2 end reducs, 1 recharge
cloak of fear - 2 tohit debuffs/end reducs, 1 tohit debuff/acc, 1 end reduc, 2 accs
cloak of darkness - 3 defense/end reducs
opp gloom - 3 end reducs, 2 acc, 1 acc/mez
soul transfer - 1 recharge
Each toggle got 3 end reducs, cause I usually run them all. soul transfer doesn't really need to be slotted, so i threw a recharge in it. fear ended up with 3 tohit debuffs, 3 accs and 3 end reducers. It doens't really need to be slotted for more fear, because it hits so often that it doens't wear off of the mobs. Same goes for OG, but i had an acc/mez that i didn't have a better power to use in.
combat jumping - 3 defense/end reducs
super jump - 1 travel/end
acrobatics - 3 end reducs
I took the jumping set, because it provides acrobatics, which is pretty crucial, imo. With an aoe based character you need to make sure you're in the center and able to move when needed, so being on your butt doesn't work well. the CJ also provides a bit of defense and immob protection, which is great if you didn't take CoD
hurdle 1 jump
health - 3 greens
stamina - 3 end modifications
if you don't plan on taking stamina, you won't make it to 50. the extra regen from health is helpful, since this is one of the squishiest of scrappers.
hasten - 3 recharges
i only took this power becuase i had room and it was extremely helpful to get Conserve Power back up, which I feel is a great asset to this build.
conserve power - 3 recharges
focused acc - 3 acc buffs/end reducs
I don't really need FA, but it helps when I'm pvping against an SR or stalker, or if an AV has an elude power. When I'm getting low on endurance I kick it off, becuase it's probably the most draining of my powers. Conserve power lets me run all 11 of my standard toggles and attack nonstop without running out of endurance. I would suggest this above any other ancilliary power set.
of course, you don't have to follow my build exactly, and you probably don't have 35 HOEs sitting around that you could devote, so try a diff build if you want and slot accordingly. this build is made to be aoe primarily. in fact, before i got hoes i didn't even slot any of my single target attacks, and could hardly manage a boss on my own. But raids happen very often, so dont despair if you dont have any. When you get to 45 you can start picking them up.
Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)