DM/FA or DM/Elec?

I'm known as a bit of a scrapper nut, but I've been off for a while playing crazy, weird things like "Blasters" and "Controllers" and *whispers* even "Defenders". I have a fire armor scrapper, an elec armor brute (not really played it since the Energize change though), and several DM scrappers.

The DM/FA combo is something I've been thinking about for a while, 2 self heals, 2 damage buffs, damage aura, 2 AoE -end/+end powers. It just sounds like fun. I was talking about this to someone, and they said "Well, why not a DM/Elec then?" And that's something that hadn't really occurred to me... it has a lot of the same credentials, damage aura, 2 heals, 2 +end AoEs, and it has +rech, and pseudo KB prot included. Visually, I think elec looks better than FA as well.

Now, I've got all sorts of scrappers, all very survivable, some great farmers, some great at ST, done the RWZ challenge on at least 3, soloed some pylons, AVs, etc. I'm not terribly concerned with said new toon being a total badass, though I will devote a lot of thought later on to tweaking a min-max build for it (and might kick myself if I discover then that there was something about the other I would have liked more). Since I doubt it'll exceed my other scrappers at any specific thing, I was thinking I'd focus on just /fun/, an "all around" good scrapper, but I can't help myself from thinking things through before rolling one. Any synergies between the two sets I may have missed? Any experience with either set? Comments on what would be more fun? I'm not really looking for builds, as much as a discussion how they play similarly/differently, and so on.

Comparing the two unslotted:

fire: resistance 22.5 s/l/e/n, 15 c/t, 67.5 f, 0 psi, Tier 9 self rez
elec: resistance 26.3 s/l/f/c/p, 22.5 n, 61.9 e, 0 tox, good solid tier 9

fire: mez protection stun/hold/sleep (kind of an immob protection but not really), resdebuff rech/movement
elec: mez protection stun/sleep/hold/immob/kb, resdebuff recov/end(x2)/rech/movement

fire: heal/end heal for 334.7 on a much faster recharge, consume 20+end in an aoe attack with minor damage
elec: heal/end heal for 334.7+100%regen(+endredux), +powersink which is autohit

fire: good +dmg; extra aoe damage from consume(minor) and burn if you can get them to stay in the patch
elec: +spd/rech

So you might get a little more aoe damage with fire to complement the single target heavy DM, but not much unless you can keep enemies in your burn patch. Fiery embrace is very nice for +dmg, but I hate self-rez tier 9 powers as I'd rather not die in the first place.
Stats-wise I personally think electric pulls ahead for a general fun build. Plus you prefer the look of electric armor so...

Aoe damage, endurance, and recharge are the best things these two could give to DM, and /electric does better on two out of those three.

well, i will chime in here.

Elec armor, i have a stone/elec brute. elec is really nice for "slow" rech type sets like stone, and for "fast" rech sets, if the extra rech allows for an attack chain to be greatly improved. basically, if its slow it helps to get it back to average, and in certain cases of fast sets, it can help push them over the top-like katana. a mega recharge slotted type build can make katana damage climb really fast, by allowing the tier 8 and 9 to be used much more often without filler attacks. stone is like that too with enough recharge, siesmic smash and heavy mallet can be used much more to push the dps up dramatically.

now, for dark melee, it depends on what you are after build wise. the ol buzzsaw builds use the fastest animating attacks filled with procs etc for dps. here, a certain amount of rech is needed, and beyond that it is somewhat of a waste. think of it in steps, at a certain point the rech is useful, but additional rech wont really help until you get enough to get high enough for that next step. if you are interested in this type of build(it is quite single target oriented, but fast at it) i suggest looking for some DM/SR builds, or DM/SR buzzsaw builds to get a feel for it as SR has the same +rech built in. elec will play a little diferently, and you cant stuff it full of LoTG but it would give you an idea of how much rech is useful, and how much rech others have set as their goal for the build.

now, if you arent going for that buzzsaw type single target build, or want to try to use more aoe with DM, then i would go DM/Fire. I have one of these, and it is rather fun. lots of synergy. Fire armor is deemed a little squishy, and it can be at times. the res numbers arent really quite enough to push yourself, however, synergy number one: siphon life. the heal over time works really well witha res set, and it happens to do a good chunk of dmg. if you need more healing, healing flames is there on a good rech as well. DM to hit debuff helps a little here as well. other notes on survivability, i am slotting mine with touch of death etc to get some solid melee defense, obliteration also has a big bonus on it. stack 3 or 4 of those 3.75% and it gets really noticable on the incoming dmg rate(mostly on big piles of minions)

other DM/fire synergy: dmg aura for aoe, and also 3 utility types of pbaoe that can be slotted for dmg. with two pbaoe end recovery, you can alternate them and slot them for dmg/rech/acc (and recov if there is room left) and not really suffer because you have two of them. soul drain is another, you want max rech obviously, but some dmg is good too. DM/Fire is a single target primarily, but thrives in big spawns too because of the utility tools as pbaoe. if you can swing it, obliteration sets work really well in this combo, one in both recov powers, one is soul drain, i think shadow maul takes one- this will give you a nice melee def bonus and solid rech bonus too, and all 3 pbaoe will have great rech slotted in them.

last and not least DM/fire synergy, midnight grasp wit its immob and burn. it's mag 3 immob, really easy to stack, so those harder targets that can put a hurt on not so tough fire armor
can be kept in a burn patch to take them down much more quickly. plus thats a lot of DoT on one target, its fun to watch.

anyway, I lean towards DM/fire, but i will also be the first to admit that DM/elec is likely easier to play with its built in KB prot. elec's major downfall in the past was its lack of heal on a res based set. and while this was adressed, siphon life works very well here too. really, DM/elec is going to be easier to play, but also have less tricks up it's sleeve. against a really hard target like an EB or while facing AV's, the elec is going to be more survivable with it's tier 9 available. fire will do more dmg here, with burn and fiery embrace.

so thats my two inf. hope the info helps, it really depends what you want to do with the character as far as play style goes. good luck!

I haven't had experience with /Elec at all, but I'm sure loving my new DM/FA brute. The combination is fantastic, and I'm glad you spoke up in favor of it when I mentioned it a few weeks ago.

Either would work, but I think that the changes made to /Elec tip it into the lead in just about all contexts. It's an easier build to plan for, since you don't have to worry about compensating for its lack of mez protection (/Fire lacks hold and immobilize protection, outside of Burn). It also has Lightning Reflexes.

Personally, I think that the recharge time on Fiery Embrace is too long for it to be useful for a steady DPS set like DM when Lightning Reflexes increases the number of attacks you can pump out.

Other than those points, I guess I should say that a non-IO'd version of either secondary would affect your travel power. A /FA scrapper would be inclined to take SJ so that Combat Jumping and Acrobatics plug the holes in its mez protection, wheras a /Elec Scrapper will more likely take Super Speed because its mez protection power, Grounded, requires the scrapper to be on the ground for it to work.