Ancillary Pool

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

The reason you get Blaze mastery is for Fire Ball, Fire Blast and maybe Char. Ring of Fire is okay too. Melt armor is the skippable choice in that group.

Mid's shows it as a 7% -defense and a 9.75% -res. The -res isn't enhanceable, and for for high damage scrappers, 9.75% -res is almost background noise. Oh and it eats up almost 23 pts of endurance too.

This.

You're only getting a -9.75% to enemies resistances. Which will be heavily resisted by the only targets you really need to use it on, AVs.

Yes, in a team setting it will stack, but if you have the debuffers already, you really don't need it.

The -defense, isn't usually that beneficial by the time you get to that level either.

It they wanted to put a useful power at that spot, they should of put Heat Exhaustion in it's place instead.

Already hard enough to get the power into build imo, as it is. But Melt Armor is just the suckie as it is. Even more so with the 200 second recharge.

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

Or make it a single target version with more -res and -def, lower end, and faster recharge. That's what I was pushing for when it was first released.

That would work too. I just like the idea of HE *greedily wants the -regen*

To Zamuel. No, you're not forced into any pool. :P

I don't see why you don't just go with Blaze still and grab Fire Blast for the added AoE.

Just because Melt Armor isn't good, doesn't mean the rest of the pool is bad.

Says you. Honestly, I'm not even that enamored with Fireball (which I think is what you meant to reference rather than Fire Blast). The APP ST attacks and mez powers just don't have the oomph that I'd need in order to actually consider taking them for any reason other than set-muling. This is why the only APP I ever bother with on Scraps is Body.

Yeah, I meant Fireball.

And I like Fire Blast and Fireball. They're flashy. It's the hold and immobilize I hate, and find unneeded. And why I fought to have Fire Blast put in the tier 1 spot.

Like that'll happen. No Scrapper APP has a blast in the tier 1 spot. Not that any of the blasts are actually worth using in all but the worst ST attack strings (looking at you Spines and Elec).

No they don't. It's more for fun purposes than anything else. And why I think the single target blasts should be moved to tier 1 spot.

They're basically more for the concept purposes. And a blast fits more concepts than the ability to hold or immobilize with the element. :/ Poor design imo.

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

Weapon Mastery is FUN! But ever since my Ninja MM got Shuriken (including explosive ones!) instead of bows, I've had no reason to play the scrapper with exploding stars :P. 3 is better than 1 amirite?

I'd have to see your build to know what set to put in it.

Just slamming a set into an attack will get you set bonuses, and possibly even decent modifiers for the attack (or other power)...and even a grab of different set bonuses is likely to improve the toon in some way.

But it's always best to concentrate on going for a general theme with set bonuses imo.

I pretty much stick with Body Mastery: Conserve Power + Physical Perfection or Focused Accuracy + Physical Perfection depending on whether the build has need of additional endurance. All of the Scrapper APPs, especially the attacks, are so lackluster that I don't bother taking them except as mules with the exception of those 3 powers because they don't attempt to do something that requires 1-2 more powers to be effective when they only give us 1 (this includes doing ranged damage as well as any kind of mez).

Of course, it's rather telling about the state of Scrapper APPs when the only powers I think are worth taking aren't really all that great and were all created specifically for Body Mastery rather than being APP'd ported powers: CP has rather appalling uptime, FA has been nerfed to such a point that it's actually worse than a pool power by a fair margin, and Physical Perfection is only remotely useful because of unintended functionality of the heal uniques.

I really wish that the design mentality had been more along the lines of "augment what Scrappers already do" rather than simply "crappy functionality for things that need to stack but have no other powers to stack with or have powers that already do better".

I four slot Char with Basilisks Gaze, 6 slot Fire Blast with either a full set of Thunderstrikes or a mix of Thunderstrikes and Devastations and then 5 slot Fireball with Posi's. A good mix of set bonuses there, although I do suppose saving up for a purple set might work better.

On my fire melee scrapper I love fire blast because I hate chasing runners. I'll cycle through fire sword circle and fireball as fast as I can and then shoot down the runners. I took the weapon mastery set on my ninja themed scrapper, but ended up hating caltrops with a passion and was left unimpressed with all the stars. So I respecced and took the body mastery, that pool is pretty uber.

I agree with Jack here. Char, Fire Blast, and Fireball are about all you want from Blaze.

Ring of Fire would be useful for immobilizing a single target for a Burn patch, but that's the only use I can think of for it. Jack's slotting advice is almost exactly what I'd go with as well. (I'd lean toward the Thunderstrikes in Fire Blast)

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Probably not. Positron's Blast is almost as effective for a fraction of the price (leave out the Dam/Range and put in a generic recharge if you 6-slot). Purple sets can be useful on a scrapper, but I'd work on a purple set for my melee powers before putting one in my epic pool.

Oops, I just meant the knockdown proc instead of the entire set.

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman