What are good secondaries for a Katana Scrapper?
Katana goes well with pretty much anything. It does great damage, and perhaps just as important, has Divine Avalanche which increases your own defense when it hits. DA adds a good amount of survivability to any secondary. FA provides some decent damage resistance, and an excellent self-heal, but it has no defense, something DA can provide. Layering mitigation is very effective for increasing survivability.
I think a Katana/Fire scrapper would be quite the killing machine.
The great thing about the scrapper sets are that all the sets are good, and they all go together. Some pair together better than others, but there's no such thing as a bad scrapper.
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@Starflier
Katana goes well with any secondary.
Katana/Willpower is commonly recommended for new players. Willpower is an easy to play and forgiving secondary that starts strong and stays strong through the whole game. Katana adds some heavy melee defense on top of that (Divine Avalanche), making a very strong combination. Here's a good guide if that sounds good to you. It says it's a Broad Sword/Willpower guide, but Katana and Broad Sword are close enough that you can substitute powers one for one and be in good shape. The differences are subtle enough to not matter at this point, and we can help you out further when they start mattering.
Fiery Aura is one of the weaker secondaries from a survivability standpoint, though with enough effort it can be made good. The main advantage in my mind is Fiery Embrace, which is a big damage boost. I don't think I'd make that my first scrapper, though.
Katana/Regen is a very good combination, but as it approaches the limit, Regeneration is a very active secondary that takes some quick decisions and precise timing to keep you alive. Not generally recommended as a first scrapper, but if you have basic MMO experience, and are willing to go to the school of hard knocks, it's a great combination.
Katana/Dark Armor is... well, it's complicated. Dark Armor is a great secondary, particularly on teams. And Katana gives it the serious defense boost it needs to really shine. So what's the problem? Well, some of the choices are counter intuitive (to save endurance, run your highest-endurance toggle!), a lot of the mitigation is unusual (stunned or cowering minions), one of the defensive powers hides you completely so you'll never see your costume again, it has a reputation for eating endurance, and so on. So good combination, but not one I'd recommend to a first timer.
Katana/Invulnerability is VERY good in its element (fighting dozens of smashing/lethal enemies in melee range), merely decent outside of its element, and has a serious Achilles' heel to psionic damage. It's fairly straightforward, though, so it's a pretty good scrapper to cut your teeth on.
Katana/Super Reflexes would probably be a very good starter set. Super Reflexes is fire and forget simple, like Willpower. It just goes about things differently, by keeping you from being hit. Normally, the weakness of Super Reflexes is that it takes a long time to layer all your defenses up to the point where you're in good shape. The great thing about Katana is that its defense stacks on top of Super Reflexes, so it fills in the defensive hole while you're leveling. Very good top end power as well, and relative cheap to turn into a hard core no temps, no inspirations archvillain soloer in the end game if that's an interest for you. (Mind you, the others can do that as well, but usually at greater expense.)
And you can't use a shield with Katana, so I guess that's it!
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One thing to keep in mind is that every time you use a click power outside your primary, you'll put your sword away. This may or may not annoy the heck out of you.
Regen is the most 'click heavy' scrapper secondary. Willpower, Inv, and SR are the least. Dark and Fire armor both use a fairly quick recharging self-heal, so they're in the middle.
Love my Kat/Regen. Was my first 50.
Scrapper forum legend Buffy Summers is a Kat/Invul. The +Def from Divine Avalanche and the Resist from Invul synergise well.
And the +Def from Divine Avalanche only makes Super Reflexes that much more super.
Heraclea's guide to Willpower should make Kat/WP a breeze.
I can't say how survivable fire armor is w/ other stuff, but imo it is great combined with Katana. Divine avalanche is amazing for covering melee/lethal defense (can't say that enough times lol) and for the stuff that does get through, fire armor gives pretty decent resists to cushion the blow (psi is no good though :/ ), and then healing flames to help get you back up.
I would personally recommend FA and Regen over any of the other secondaries for a new player. Having a fast recharge heal is invaluable imho when learning the ropes.
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but I'm not sure if FA complements Katana. Thanks
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I wouldn't necessarily say FA complements katana, but more katana complements FA really.
Katana/WP is such a great character to play because it's the perfect opposite to my Dominator. Unlike my Dominator, it's a very plug-and-play character that can charge into difficult odds and emerge relatively unscathed with some very impressive animations and excellent damage.
Katana goes well with anything...
...except Shields. A Kat/Shield Scrapper would be too much awesome, and would format the servers the moment it appeared in Outbreak. This is why you can't make one. 
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Katana goes well with anything...
...except Shields. A Kat/Shield Scrapper would be too much awesome, and would format the servers the moment it appeared in Outbreak. This is why you can't make one.
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I've never heard more truth.
@Mojo-
Proud Member of Fusion Force.
Also:
Bah, I guess people are still waiting on my Katana/WP guide. Stupid RL crap. I'll get on it.
@Mojo-
Proud Member of Fusion Force.
/Fire can be made good as a scrapper set - works much better than as a tanker set. But its chief virtue now is that many of its powers can be postponed or skipped (Burn, Fiery Embrace, Temperature Protection, Rise of the Phoenix). You would do well to use the opportunity made by the postponable or skippable powers to get early Tough and Weave. Slot everything, attacks and toggles, for endurance recovery.
If you're not in so deep, I would strongly recommend Willpower as a secondary. The main issue this game has, especially in the early levels, is Endurance. I have a Broadsworld/Willpower scrapper that plays quite nicely on Virtue, my distant second as a server home, but that character was enjoyable enough that she got to level 38 fairly easily. (I am much more often found on Victory.)
At any rate, for Willpower: get Quick Recovery at level 20 and plan to take Stamina at level 22. Qualify for Stamina at 22 by postponing Mind over Body and Heightened Senses until 24 and 30, respectively. It will be somewhat of a rough road to 22 (hint: Positron and Synapse) but once you get there your character will be a very tough killing machine that you will enjoy quite a bit.
"Live Through This" in my signature is a Brute guide, but the Willpower part is the same for Scrappers.
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Katana / Will Power, They are a very complimentary fit, and will power is one of the best sets for the beginner. Divine Avalanche helps fill the hole in Melee defense in WP, bringing all the defenses up to equal, then the additional resists from WP strengthen the overall mitigation vs melee. A good late-game IO build can soft-cap defenses and still have the additional mitigation of WP. It's almost a hand/glove fit.
Katana/SR can be very nice, can softcap defenses very easily, but is something of overkill in the pure defense area. I generally prefer to diversify more.
Katana/Regen is one of my favorites, but regen is no longer the king of scrappers it once was. The various sets have a much better overall balance now. Still, this is one of my favorites, if not my number one favorite.
as to other scrappers:
Fire Melee/Super Reflexes would likely be the lost cost pick, being a top performer even with SOs, no IOs needed.
Dark Melee/Shield Defense would likely be the top pick when disregarding IO costs.
Katana/INV is good too. The passives have been buffed and you have a built in self heal. Plus a halfway crappy tier 9 power on /INV that works well when you time it right.
And if you plan your build right it can be done cheaply. I have done it.
I'm new to this game (just left WoW, and good riddance) and I decided to roll a Katana Scrapper. I took Fiery Aura, but I'm not sure if FA complements Katana. Thanks