Assuming a ridiculous amount of coin is DB still the way to go for DPS?

I know it was back when it came out (about when I quit), but a lot has changed and been proliferated and I really want to continue / make a new x/sr scrapper for raw dps / AV soloing and the like

You might want to check out the two posts stickied at the top of the forum by BillZBubba. They're both called "The Results are in..." They're a fairly comprehensive breakdown of the the set DPSes on single targets. Results may vary, of course, but, DB is still a strong set, though it's incompatibility with the new shiny shield defense has made it less popular.

I think what you want is Dark Melee/Shield Defense. It and Fiery Melee/Shield Defense are your top DPS options, but the Dark Melee has more survivability in AV fights due to Siphon Life. Fiery Melee would likely be the better choice for regular play, though, as it has a lot higher AoE capability. The new difficulty sliders allow you to get full-team-sized spawns while solo, so AoE is, at least for me, a lot more attractive now.

Also see the Rikti Pylon Results Thread for a whole lot of examples of real-world DPS rather than calculated DPS. Mind you, we've gotten better and better at our calculations, and theoretical maximums are interesting, but I'd still consider Pylon soloing times on actual builds that people actually play to be the gold standard.

Here is a quick summary of the thread. Keep in mind that without knowing the builds, we could be comparing SOs to purples and PvP IOs. I know we're comparing DPS builds to survivability builds. So the position on this list is merely suggestive of a combination's potential DPS, not conclusive.

276 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Iggy Kamakaze
267 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - Igor The Mad
262 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Machine Man X
259 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Norse
255 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - Besserwisser
249 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - SkylineGTR
243 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Primal Dark
242 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - MrLiberty
241 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - Powerforge
239 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Effy On Malibu
236 Broad Sword/Shield Defense - Chaos String
219 Katana/Super Reflexes - Laevateinn
219 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - _Mojo_
210 Katana/Regeneration - Iggy Kamakaze
205 Claws/Super Reflexes - Powerforge
198 Claws/Super Reflexes - Iggy Kamakaze
196 Dual Blades/Invulnerability - Nihilii
194 Claws/Super Reflexes - Bill Z Bubba
190 Dual Blades/Willpower - Myriad
185 Katana/Regen - Werner
184 Dark Melee/Super Reflexes - Larac
180 Dark Melee/Super Reflexes - Werner
177 Katana/Dark Armor - Werner
175 Katana/Willpower - Iggy Kamakaze
174 Katana/Willpower - AgentMountaineer
174 Martial Arts/Shield Defense - Broken Prey
170 Claws/Regeneration - Iggy Kamakaze
167 Martial Arts/Super Reflexes - American Dynamo
165 Broad Sword/Invulnerability - Hopeling
160 Katana/Fiery Aura - Iggy Kamakaze
160 Dual Blades/Willpower - Soul Fane
152 Dual Blades/Regeneration - BrokenPrey
150 Katana/Dark Armor - ShadowBeast NA
149 Martial Arts/Regeneration - SpiderTeo OC
148 Dark Melee/Invulnerability - Aliana Blue

Too add to those results, I calculated just over 300 DPS for a Dark Melee/Shield Defense based on the time for an AV fight by Shred Monkey. Now, that was a lot shorter than a Pylon fight, so luck may have played a much bigger factor, but it's still something to consider in regards to top end performance.

If you really want to stick with Super Reflexes, consider Dark Melee or Katana. Dark Melee is probably best at the high end with saturated Soul Drain, and Siphon Life does a lot for survivability. But Katana can beat it on DPS when it isn't saturated, so you don't need to worry about surrounding yourself with minions. Katana can do similar DPS to Dual Blades, perhaps even a little higher, plus the recharge requirements are lower. Also, Katana smooths out the leveling process before your secondary matures. Dual Blades is still a great choice for end game unlimited-budget DPS, though. And Fiery Melee is quite good as well, even on a budget build, plus you're adding a lot of potential AoE.

does AHproc stack with itself? not necessarily from the same power, im thinking BS or katana. That'd be cool.

Thanks a bunch werner, I had completely forgotten about they pylon thread, that is definitely a much more useful tool than arbitrary calculations for me atleast for now if I'm not making those calculations...

And yea, dark vs fire they both have their pros and cons and I will have to decide on them, but I do have a pretty relevant question. I am assuming all of those pretty high DPS numbers for shield scrappers are with a fully saturated AAo or close to the 10? While nice that is not really a standard sadly...

And right I'd definitely want survivability also, but that shouldn't be terrible with whatever I pick.

But no, I'm not necessarily sold on super reflexes, just back when I made it I thought it would be the best for raw ST DPS not to mention easy to softcap.

As easy as it is to Softcap Super Reflexes, it leaves alot to be desired offensively. My Kat/SR is fun and all, but his offensive capabilities are just weighed down by his secondary slighly, especialy in comparison to a /shield scrapper. At first glance Shield look fantastic, Def Softcap capability, AAO and shield charge and a bonus to HP and Resistance, where SR just has Defense. Sadly, howver, Shield doesnt have as much Resistance to Def Debuff. The Res to Def Debuff is the whole allure to SR for me, even if I do feel a bit lacking in the DPS department. Now I'm notmuch of an AV soloer or anything like that, but I'll have to agree with Werner on Dark Melee. The Self Heal is so nice when coupled with a defense heavy set, not to mention the inherent -ToHit debuffs on the enemies will stack nicely with your own defense toggles. ANother factor to keep in mind is end game resistance. Katana, for example, does entirely lethal damage, which is the most commonly resisted damage type. Dark Melee has a rather large Negative Energy Component that feels very nice, even if it does lack tools such as Soaring Dragon and The Lotus Drops. In this case it feels entirely based on preference, so just pick what you you'd like to try and see how it fits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

I've got a fm/sd and a dm/sd. I'd suggest going with the fm/sd because it shines in more situations than the dm/sd - especially on large teams or mishes set at x8. FSC is very nice and with lots of recharge it's always available for that added aoe carnage. The only time I'd recommend dm/sd over fire/sd is if you are building the toon specifically for soloing av's without insps due to the heal attack in dm.

Right I know, but capped def never hurts lol, but I agree debuff res is very nice and important

SR does bring +20% recharge to the table as far as offence goes which is nothing to scoff at

And yea, def combined with -tohit has always been a beautiful combination

I would not mind fire either for the AoE capability, and will definitely take a closer look

My biggest problem with those numbers and suggestions is that shield seems a lot streakier...sure it would be nice to always have a fully saturated AAO, that might happen especially if I want to solo AVs and the like...

Also note that in order to achieve very very high single target DPS, DM/Shield requires saturated AAO *and* Soul Drain. This means that you need non-squishy soul-drain fodder or it will die to the soul drain damage output.
In order to take a pylon down in sub 5 minutes, you basically have to herd two spawns of level 54 rikti on top of the pylon. If you're unfortunate they'll gib you while you're fighting the silly thing.

All fire/shield requires is a bunch of level 41 rikti monkeys.

This is balanced out to some extent by the fact that DM has a strong self heal included in its attack chain (worth approx. 40 hp/sec), but it does make achieving high dps output require planning ahead.

It really takes several stupid mistakes for me to get killed on my dm/shield. It's incredibly sturdy.

As far as soloing AV's go, it's quite simple to herd up a bunch of minions around the AV and then take him down. Don't assume that you'll only have 1 target fueling AAO because that simply won't be the case most of the time.
However, if you're teaming, it's a different story - although "How fast can I solo an AV" doesn't really apply to a team :P

With saturated SD + AAO, my DM/Shield hits +242.3 damage, which is only ~3 reds off the effect dmg cap since attacks are slotted with 90-95 damage enhancement. My wife's similarly purpled fire/shield hits around 196.5 +dmg with buildup. SD is about 5-6 seconds off perma, and Buildup is up for 10 and down for 17. You haven't lived 'til you've seen a midnight grasp at damage cap hit a enervating fielded, freezing rained, tar patched, sonic debuffed AV and proc the hecatomb negative and crit. It was over 3000.


TLDR? Roll fire/shield if you don't mind popping greens occasionally and don't want to deal with the hassle of "oh look, I killed my AAO fodder with my buildup power". Fire sword circle is also all that, plus a bag of chips.

DM/Shield has excellent AOE (ok, well, it has one excellent aoe) (saturated SD+AAO shield charge kills +4 minions) and better survivability, and (imo) better ST dps if you're able to keep SD saturated full time.

Went out to the warzone just now to see how much dps a dm/shield *could* do.

With soul drain + aao maxed, smite hits for 221/71, siphon for 432, MG for 550 + 5 ticks of 24. That's 1685 dmg in 6.732 seconds for 250.3 dps. Accounting for the pylon's 20 percent resist all, I get (250.3/.8) 312.8 dps theoretically, assuming my math procedures are correct. This does not include procs or crits or misses.
Soul drain has 30 seconds up and 6 seconds down, so reduce numbers accordingly. It gives a 150 percent damage buff, so that 312.8dps at +242.3 damage should be about 173.8 dps without it. (30/36)(312.4) + (6/36)(173.8) I come out with average dps of 289.6, discounting procs, crits, and misses.

I need more recharge. If I could (for example) shave 2 seconds off my SD recharge, dps would go up by 10.
Tweak my build thread incoming >.>

One thing before I look deeper / decide. Your DPS went up when you went to account for the resistance :P

You should have multiplied by 80%

Check out my lastest build Igor, its in one of two dark/shield threads I made lol. Not sure which one though lol.