"Hardcore" survival-oriented build for BS/SD?

I have a "hardcore" Scrapper I am looking into respeccing for increased survivability.

"Hardcore" (term derived from Diablo II) means the character is treated as if he/she has only one life, and defeat is final. Whether the character is outright deleted on defeat or simply leaves his SG and is no longer considered Hardcore is up to the player.

Needless to say this is tricky on any character, and maybe moreso on a Scrapper.

Currently he is 23, barely kitted out with some 25 IOs and frankenslotted in 3 attacks...living through the power of Parry.

I am thinking of this build:


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Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Broad Sword
Secondary: Shield Defense
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01: Deflection
01: Hack
02: Battle Agility
04: Slice
06: True Grit
08: Parry
10: Active Defense
12: Boxing
14: Swift
16: Against All Odds
18: Health
20: Stamina
22: Phalanx Fighting
24: Whirling Sword
26: Disembowel
28: Tough
30: Weave
32: Head Splitter
35: Shield Charge
38: Build Up

I would use Ninja Run, a jetpack, and the jump jet for travel.

My concerns are giving up Combat Jumping, which he's had so far, and its cheap defense, and taking Build Up so freaking late. I could skip attacks for more defenses, but it's important to do damage too .

He may wind up soloing a lot, generally vs same-level content, at least until he gets very solid defenses. So I do need the AoE attacks to chew through groups before they chew through me.

He'll probably keep Parry long-term. I may never have the influence to soft-cap him, since the rules for his SG preclude playing the market or twinking from other characters. In fact, only a lucky rare salvage drop that sold for over a million enabled me to carefully shop him the frankenslotted IOs.

Any advice would be welcome.

It seems better to take BU before Whirling Sword (which is what I did on my BS/SD). Slice already gives you respectable AoE (with some positioning on your part) and you cannot take on groups large enough to make the extra AoE really significant. BU also helps you hit while debuffed by all the CoT ghosts you'll face and helps to quickly kill nasty stuff e.g. Council Marksmen, Madness Mages, Earth Thorn Casters, Arachnos Tarantulas and other such things that are a pain if left alive very long. I would take Whirling Sword at 38 instead, right after Shield Charge so you can use both in tandem.

Definitely keep Parry, it's a nice filler attack and softcapped lethal keeps away a lot of nasty stuff.

I'm not sure if I would bother with IOs beyond frankenslotting and the usual budget SD stuff. Try to get a Steadfast +3 def from AE bronze rolls, 1 full set of Red Fortune and 1 full set of Multistrike. Together with Weave and your toggles this puts you at a hair below 32.5% defense to all, so you can eat 1 small purple inspiration and instantly become softcapped. On my BS/SD using only SOs, I found it very hard to run Tough/Weave as well as attack, but you may do better with frankenslotted attacks.

Consider crafting an Etheral Shift as a poor man's Hibernate (it's very cheap). All my characters have one to prevent embarassing deaths. Good luck.

I have a new fire/shield scrapper that I tanked up pretty good, and would be possible to never die, but if you're actually challenging yourself, it's pretty hard. Did a LGTF the other day following a tank I knew was made of paper and couldnt keep agro from A SINGLE GUY off me. Well, to make a long story short, the three riders end drained and popped me.

Good luck with your hardcore though heh.

Made it about 1 week after getting 50

Yeah.. hardcore is a crazy. Pulling singles, tactics, strategy, careful team makeup. You know... the stuff you have to do in some games just to get exp. Heck, in this game there's so little penelty for death, I usually die on purpose when I hit level 4 to get back to the trainer.

I applaud the hardcore teams for adding some of the "gaming" back to this game. I wish I had the play schedule to hook-up with one and join them regularly.

i would think that One with the Shield would give you more survivability than say, Phalanx, but I could be wrong. also, with Parry and IOs it is easy to not die. I would expect end drain to be your biggest threat.