spines/da still awesome?

Hey,

I've been playing CoH on and off for a long time, but my last break was over a year. I mainly play trollers but have two scrappers a claws/sr at lvl 30 and a spines/da at lvl 27.

I dusted off my scrapper earlier today and thought I'd hit the forums to see what the latest take on spines/da, is this still an awesome combo or have any changes within the last year 'broken' it?

Many thanks for any info.

Having just taken my Spines/DA to level 50 recently, here's my take:

Like many Scrapper combos it's a late bloomer. I had end and survivability issues until I hit the thirties and purchased some IOs. The survivability issues were only on very large teams that had problems controlling agro..namely, I was the one getting large amounts of agro.

The End issues were mainly if I soloed...on large teams, it wasn't as much of a problem.

When I hit the thirties and beyond, he simply got more and more powerful. Now at 50, fully IO'd, he's one of my most potent characters....and a joy to play. I shred spawns of minions easily, and can withstand anything short of AV's.

My humble advice is stick with it, but play on teams as much as possible, especially TFs, if you can. Pick up a Performance Shifter:Chance for End as quickly as you can. Use the mobility of Combat Jumping to jump just outside a spawn to better use Throw Spines. It's a huge cone, and probably my favorite Spines power.

There's an accurate healing IO that gives a chance for +end. Put that in Dark Regen and you'll probably end up gaining endurance for using Dark Regen on a large spawn.

Thanks for those tips so far, I know very little about IOs at the moment, will have a play around in Mids. If anyone has advice on slotting etc please share.

At the moment I know there are certain things I would have to address in my build:

- lack of knockback/immobilisation, do I still have to rely on leaping pool here or are there an IOs sets that let me pass that?
- recharge, ideally I'll like to be able to chain throw spines, ripper and spine burst, I have hasten but if I can go without that then would consider it.
- been reading about hitting the defense soft-cap, is this possible with da?

Many thanks again.

Your immobilization protection is in Cloak of Darkness. If you don't want to be a fuzzball of doom, then you'll want to pick up Combat Jumping. I'm a huge fan of Combat Jumping anyway. There are both single IOs and IO sets that offer knockback resistance. I use Steadfast Protections while leveling because I bought a bunch of them back when they were cheap. Last time I looked (a long time ago), they were moderately expensive (10 million?), probably because they're so useful. Even better is slotting a couple Blessing of the Zephyr sets, but I hear those are extra special pricey. One knockback IO will handle the majority of knockback, but you will still get knocked back occasionally. To me, one is good enough, but you may want two or three. In any case, if you have the influence, I'd definitely recommend IOs over Acrobatics, which wastes both a power pick and a lot of endurance on an endurance-hungry build.

I haven't fiddled with Spines attack chains, so I can't really comment there. I haven't hit 50 on my Spines/Dark yet, so I'm still using the “hit whatever has recharged” approach and haven't calculated anything out. I just checked, and I don't have Hasten, but that's not really a recommendation since I'm just winging it.

On paper, I have a Katana/Dark build soft-capped to all positions with only moderate (instead of crippling) compromises to other aspects of the build. But Katana (and not worrying about budget) makes it a lot easier to pull off. I wouldn't even attempt it on a Spines/Dark, as even if it's possible, I think the build on the whole would end up horribly compromised. Defense is still good, so grab some, but settle for less than the soft cap.

I didn't try do fiddle with softcapping. Right now I'm at around 20% Defense and 52.5% resistance to Smashing/Lethal....certainly not perfect....but Cloak of Fear seems to do the trick(I'm gonna respec and try Oppressive Gloom soon to compare, perhaps even try to put up an updated guide).

As for KB, I used Acrobatics until I could afford two(One is probably enough for most content as Werner said)Steadfast -KB IOs, purchased in the early thirties.

I also don't have Hasten. I had enough End issues leveling to not bother adding to it. Personally, I don't think you need it. Between Throw Spines, Spine Burst, and Ripper, I'm kept pretty busy.

Cool, thanks ArcticFahx. I appreciate the info on Oppresive Gloom. I've yet to try it out, but will be respecing immediately. Cheers!

My one big complaint about Spines/Da is that all that AoE tends to write some checks DA is frequently not built to cash. All that damage does make a sickly delicious sound, but it can steal aggro from a tank pretty quickly.

Spines/Fire is the other popular lawnmower combo. I doesn't have the cool controller-ish powers of DA, but it does have a very handy End recovery power.

I've always wondered how Spines/Inv would be. You'd lose a little AoE damage, but gain quite a bit in survivability, I would imagine.