City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Claws/WP build

Negescape

By Negescape,
Posted on: 2009-09-10 10:36 in Scrappers

 

Posted

Thinking it's time to dust off my claws scrapper give it its turn in the forefront. Obviously I have questions. This is planned to be my AV soloer/RWZ/kill whatever I want BA of a scrapper.

1. Is maxing out defense entirely necessary with the regen numbers of the set? I mean technically RttC is adding another 4.9% to that.
2. Was putting in strike over eviscerate to squeeze out that extra 3.75% s/l defense the better choice?
3. What amount of recharge is necessary to keep up the standard attack chain? and does the build have said amount of recharge. Also, where does information like that like to hang out, I've been meaning to read up on that stuff.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

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Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Claws
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Pyre Mastery

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Negescape View Post
1. Is maxing out defense entirely necessary with the regen numbers of the set? I mean technically RttC is adding another 4.9% to that.
It's never really necessary honestly. That last 5% defense to get you to the softcap will double your survivability though, so, if you can, the rewards are actually pretty impressive.

By the way, RttC isn't necessarily going to add 4.98% to that. Enemies above your level will be affected less (according to this chart) as will EB/AV/GMs (all but some EBs according to this chart), lieutenants (10% tohit debuff resistance), and bosses (20% tohit debuff resistance). I wouldn't really rely upon the tiny amount of -tohit provided by RttC in any case. A debuff that small can't really be relied upon to maintain that last bit of defensive oomph.

Quote:
2. Was putting in strike over eviscerate to squeeze out that extra 3.75% s/l defense the better choice?
Considering that strike is going to be in your attack string and Eviscerate isn't, you made the right choice. Now, if you're debating between Swipe and Eviscerate, since neither of them would really be used in the attack string, it's a question of whether you want a set mule (for the extra 3.75% +def (s/l)) or an attack you won't really be using all that often and will be largely underslotted. I think you made the right choice with Swipe.

Quote:
3. What amount of recharge is necessary to keep up the standard attack chain? and does the build have said amount of recharge. Also, where does information like that like to hang out, I've been meaning to read up on that stuff.
The standard attack chain for lowish recharge Claws is FU>Focus>Slash>Strike. It doesn't really have much in the way of +rech requirements (Focus, Slash, and Strike require only 62%, 30%, and 0% +rech respectively) except for FU, which requires 185% +rech, which you're not really packing. If you switch out the Rectified Reticle for Adjusted Targeting (tohit/rech, rech) you'll lose out on a little bit of +def(s/l), but you'll be able to run the attack string.

That's always been my biggest problem about slotting for positional defense. The set bonuses are always on the low level sets so you always manage to end up short slotting the enhancement bonuses on your powers. You're packing barely any +acc (22.94%) in 3 of the 4 attacks you'll be using, that I doubt you'll be able to reliably hit harder targets like those on the RWZ Challenge.

 

Posted

Yeah I meant Swipe, not Strike.

I'm not a real fan of slotting typed defenses either, especially because when I get go with positional I'm also getting a few set handy bonuses along the way like global accuracy and recharge, on top of the fact that those sets are also level 50 (besides ToD) and have a bit of accuracy on their own because the defense bonus is the 6th slot. Alas, I was looking to try something that wasn't Shields or SR.

Around what amount of global accuracy/to hit would be needed to counter act the fact that I'm using a low level 4(5) piece set with only 1 accuracy boost to achieve high typed defenses? Should I be looking to grab Focused Accuracy to pump up my hit/acc numbers? Or am I grasping to make a sub-optimal setup shine like it's a main attraction.

I may be wrong here, feel free to point and laugh should it be the case, but I think I read that when an attack is made towards you, the highest defense you have is considdered when a hit or miss is decided, ie. if an attack has S/L component and Fire component, the higher defense of the two is used. So running around with 40% S/L but moderately low defense for most every other damage type should be passable because of that fact. Could possibly get my pwned when running into a mob or group of mobs that have a single elemental damage type, but otherwise be enough to see me through and at least give me option to drop off some other defenses to boost up global accuracy in a spot or two.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Negescape View Post
Around what amount of global accuracy/to hit would be needed to counter act the fact that I'm using a low level 4(5) piece set with only 1 accuracy boost to achieve high typed defenses? Should I be looking to grab Focused Accuracy to pump up my hit/acc numbers? Or am I grasping to make a sub-optimal setup shine like it's a main attraction.
It depends on what targets you plan on fighting. Using the accuracy numbers given by Mids (calculated with the formula ((baseAcc + tohit) * (1+ accMods))), to have a 95% chance to hit an even level enemy, you need to have a 95%. To have a 95% chance to hit an enemy 1 level above you, you need a 146%. An enemy 2 levels above would require a 169%. An enemy 3 levels above would require a 198%. An enemy 4 levels above would require a 244%.

With the FU>Focus>Slash>Strike attack string, you're only managing a little over 155% for all of those attacks except for Focus (which is sitting happy at 205%), you're only going to have a 95% chance to hit enemies 1 level above you and lower. Slash's -def would help you get to 95% against +2s, but anything higher, and you're not gonna be there even with that (thanks to the lower base acc as well as purple patch debuff resistances).

Quote:
I may be wrong here, feel free to point and laugh should it be the case, but I think I read that when an attack is made towards you, the highest defense you have is considdered when a hit or miss is decided, ie. if an attack has S/L component and Fire component, the higher defense of the two is used. So running around with 40% S/L but moderately low defense for most every other damage type should be passable because of that fact. Could possibly get my pwned when running into a mob or group of mobs that have a single elemental damage type, but otherwise be enough to see me through and at least give me option to drop off some other defenses to boost up global accuracy in a spot or two.
While it's true that the game will use the highest possible defense for an attack, I wouldn't expect that many of the attacks to be mixed type. A remarkably large number of them are actually pure typed. You'll do fine against enemies that have mostly mixed or s/l damage types, but, as soon as you face an enemy group that has even a few pure attacks, you're going to feel it. Even so, it's not as if you're "low" in your other typed defenses. 30% is more than enough when you've got more than 50 hp/sec honestly.