Did you have to post a variation of this in every forum? There's an Archetype & General Powers Discussion forum for a reason.
And no offense, but the information you posted is hardly earth shattering. I think you're going to have to come up with better stuff to wow the tough (but friendly) crowd here in this forum. It's what you get for posting in a forum filled with stat and build junkies.
Quote:
Each post is Archetype specific, blasters in blasters, scrappers in scrappers etc. |
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
Did you have to post a variation of this in every forum? There's an Archetype & General Powers Discussion forum for a reason.
And no offense, but the information you posted is hardly earth shattering. I think you're going to have to come up with better stuff to wow the tough (but friendly) crowd here in this forum. It's what you get for posting in a forum filled with stat and build junkies. |
Also, I am saving the earth shattering stuff for a later date. Anyway, keep in mind I wrote these articles for those players realatively new to the game, not old synical gamers like ourselves
Quote:
Well, fair enough, except some of us old cynical gamers won't want the newbies led astray.|
Originally Posted by Zhadu_
Also, I am saving the earth shattering stuff for a later date. Anyway, keep in mind I wrote these articles for those players realatively new to the game, not old synical gamers like ourselves
|
Broad Sword/Regen and Broad Sword/Willpower are NOT the best for single target damage. In fact, they're so far down the curve that... well, it just sounds very strange to hear something so wrong stated with such certainty. Are they good combinations? YES. In fact, Sword/Willpower is one of our most-recommended combinations. Can they even make the team for the DPS Olympics? NO. Wearing the gold for top DPS is Dark Melee/Shield Defense, with Fire Melee/Shield Defense holding the silver medal after the judges reviewed the photo finish.
For a little more information on comparative real world DPS, have a look at the "Rikti Pylon Results Thread" further down the page. There is a near-complete summary of the Scrapper results down near the bottom of the thread.
Anyway, welcome to the Scrapper forum.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
Quote:
Important caveat:|
Originally Posted by Werner
Wearing the gold for top DPS is Dark Melee/Shield Defense, with Fire Melee/Shield Defense holding the silver medal after the judges reviewed the photo finish.
|
Single target DPS only. In more general play, fire runs away and hides from DM, and spines/claws are right there with fire.
DM is a pickaxe, essential for certain jobs.
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Hate to break it to you, but the cynical old crowd vastly outnumbers the relatively new in this forum. This is a five year old game. And while Going Rogue may bring in some new players, the people who are generally reading these forums are not.|
Originally Posted by Zhadu_
Each post is Archetype specific, blasters in blasters, scrappers in scrappers etc.
Also, I am saving the earth shattering stuff for a later date. Anyway, keep in mind I wrote these articles for those players realatively new to the game, not old synical gamers like ourselves |
Also, as you can tell from the responses here, your stuff better be both earth shattering and correct. We'll be quick to correct you, and may even be harsh with you if you state misinformation.
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Except that it's not really that much more survivable, and it's only moderately better than Fire's (which provides more damage and a better heal) and Dark's (which has the added advantage of mez toggles and defense, which you ignored). |
Originally Posted by Zhadu_
slightly better damage resistance than other
armours (26% in stead of 22%). |
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| Two endurance buffs (Power Sink, Energize). |
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| And on top of all this - LIGHTNING REFLEXES, making all of your powers recharge faster (including your heal - ENERGIZE). In essence, a 20% faster attack means 20% more damage over time. |
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|
Other secondary powers could be FIRE or DARK Armor but both of these have weaknesses that Electric doesn't have - DARK has no endurance buffs. FIRE, although has an endurance reclaiming power, is a weaker armour in general. |
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| I've played both these secondaries with Spines and find the Electric armor to be the best - The damage is equal to FIRE, |
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| better than DARK. |
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| The defence is better than both |
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| The endurance reclaiming is better than FIRE and far better than DARK (which has none). |
Amazing, not only was your analysis fair, but it was also comprehensive and correct! Simply amazing! /sarcasm
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Agreed. Even ignoring animation time, 20% more recharge would only equal 20% more DPS if you only had one attack and were doing absolutely nothing else while waiting for it to recharge. When you already have enough attacks that you are never waiting for things to recharge, things become much more complicated and the actual improvement is much less.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
Except that that's completely untrue! 20% faster attack means a lot less than 20% damage over time. Acting as if there is a direct connection between the two is propagating blatantly false information. When an attack takes 5 seconds to recharge and 1.5 seconds to animate (6.5 seconds), a 20% increase in recharge is going to generate only an 18% increase in DPS. If the power were already enhanced with any recharge (like, say, 60% +rech), the increase would be substantially less (only 9% increase in DPS with that example).
|
OP, it's good that you want to help, but ensuring your information is accurate, unbiased and up-to-date is required in order to be helpful, otherwise you'll only end up misleading people. When quoting numbers, you should always understand what the numbers mean and how they fit into the context of the game. Try not to be discouraged if some of the responses here seem harsh or nitpicky (for what it's worth, I agree in general that BS + a non-defense secondary = very tough and spines/elec is pretty good AoE damage). We're quick to challenge statements that we know aren't true.
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Yes, definitely. I almost added something like, "...while Fire Melee/Shield Defense puts out so much AoE that it's a competitive farmer as well." Then I decided I was only refuting a point about single-target damage, and that I didn't want to broaden the discussion, particularly to farming. Still, I should have had a disclaimer of SOME sort. Dark Melee/Shield Defense is pretty poor for AoE, with most of the combination's AoE effectiveness probably coming from Shield Charge, not from the primary.|
Originally Posted by mauk2
Important caveat:
Single target DPS only. In more general play, fire runs away and hides from DM... |
In fact, it's probably important to note how little relevance single-target DPS has to the game as a whole. We pay an inordinate amount of attention to it on the forum, perhaps because we like things like AV soloing (which is slow and boring without high DPS), and perhaps because it's much easier to quantify than AoE output. But in a game where you might occasionally find yourself on a team, or where you can crank up the number of enemies to x8, AoE damage rules the roost.
I also perhaps should have noted that by single-target damage, the OP might not have meant DPS, and might have meant BURST single-target damage. Broad Sword is rather good in that category. And burst damage at least used to be fairly important in the regular game, but when you start cranking it up solo, and particularly if you crank it up to +4x8, single-target burst just isn't going to matter much.
Mind you, soloing at +4x8 doesn't refer to new players at all, so it's kind of irrelevant for them. For that matter, so is the single-target superiority of Dark Melee/Shield Defense, and probably most of the results in the Rikti Pylon thread.
And again, Katana/Willpower is probably our most common recommendation, particularly to new players who haven't explored what they like and dislike, don't know how they want the character to behave, and don't have specific goals. Not disagreeing with the OP about BS/Regen and BS/Will being good combinations.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
Heh, I figured this would be the reaction to the OP. I resisted nitpicking and tried to prepare him for the worst.
While this is a very friendly and helpful forum, it can also be harsh. There's been more than a few posters who've come in here with an "ultimate" build and been humbled rather quickly. I know I've been on the receiving end of such criticism. Ultimately, if you can get past the blow to your ego, you can come away with a lot of knowledge. I know that's the reason why I regularly visit this forum. I still learn things here that I wouldn't get elsewhere.
The scrapper forum is like build boot camp. Builds are broken down and made better. 
I should have figured on this reaction as well. It's been a long time since I posted anything. I've re-written the original post here in a more palatable version. It was not my intent on missleading newer players, so I'll keep things less opinionated in the future. The following is just how I like to play the toons. There are so many ways to play them and that's what keeps things interesting for me.
Broad Sword/Regen or Broad Sword/Will Power (Single target damage and tough)
Good single target damage. Make sure to pick up
PARRY and TOUGH (power pool) to make this scrapper
harder to kill. Both these powers are good to get for your Will power secondary as well
but will not be as dramatically noticeable as with regen due to the
fact that a regen has very little defence to begin with so every little
bit really helps. Don't pick up SLASH, use SLICE and PARRY as your
fill-in attacks instead. PARRY is not as damaging as SLICE but it isn't
bad and adds 15% to your melee defence each time it hits. It stacks too.
Use PARRY in your attack chain especially if taking on some damage.
Spines/Electric Armor (Good AOE)
This one is the most fun scrapper I have ever played.
Lots of AoE attacks. Two endurance buffs (Power Sink, Energize).
And on top of all this - LIGHTNING REFLEXES, making all of your powers recharge
faster (including your heal - ENERGIZE). In essence, a 20% faster attack means 20%
more damage over time.
Quote:
Except that you're still getting this wrong. Like I said in the post I did wherein I completely ripped apart whatever you were attempting to do, 20% faster recharge does not equate to 20% more damage. Please, learn what you're talking about before you start saying anything that someone could even possibly consider authoritative.
|
Originally Posted by Zhadu_
In essence, a 20% faster attack means 20% more damage over time.
|
My appologies for this post.
I will post more tactfully and minimully in future.
Oh, yeah. I don't want to single anyone out. Let's just say I understand exactly where this person is coming from. I've been there myself. It's hard, but you can get through it. Email me, we'll talk.
I love how someone comes in to post some good builds for newer players and is attacked. You guys make it seem like this is the "veteran" forum and newer players are not allowed and make it seem like newer players dont look in here when I know for a fact that they do look in here and they do exist. You can still see posts up in the forum where people are asking "what is the best powerset to pair with /powersetx" or "is xyz/abc a good combo" some of my friends and family that just began playing will look here for good combos from time to time and its sad that the mindframe of the forum is "dont come here looking for information for newer players because you wont get any"
Thank you OP for your post giving your experience with these powersets I'm sure that someone somewhere will find them very helpful, and I'm pretty sure newer players arent going to worry about a 20% increase in dps vs an 18% increase or if one power activates .03~ seconds faster. Most new players when they first start are thinking "Oooh this power comes up fast with big numbers over the baddie I like" .... or maybe thats just me when I first started lol....
The problem isn't that he posted builds (he didn't). It's that he posted information concerning those powerset combinations that is simply incorrect. Posting incorrect information in an authoritative manner is the problem that I had with his posts.
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Everyone will of course read things however they want, and no one interpretation is likely to be 100% correct. But I think you've seriously misread the motivations of the forum veterans.|
Originally Posted by ______
I love how someone comes in to post some good builds for newer players and is attacked. You guys make it seem like this is the "veteran" forum and newer players are not allowed and make it seem like newer players dont look in here when I know for a fact that they do look in here and they do exist. You can still see posts up in the forum where people are asking "what is the best powerset to pair with /powersetx" or "is xyz/abc a good combo" some of my friends and family that just began playing will look here for good combos from time to time and its sad that the mindframe of the forum is "dont come here looking for information for newer players because you wont get any"
Thank you OP for your post giving your experience with these powersets I'm sure that someone somewhere will find them very helpful, and I'm pretty sure newer players arent going to worry about a 20% increase in dps vs an 18% increase or if one power activates .03~ seconds faster. Most new players when they first start are thinking "Oooh this power comes up fast with big numbers over the baddie I like" .... or maybe thats just me when I first started lol.... |
First, I'm sure Zhadu was trying to help the newer players with his/her own vast depth of experiences in the game. That's great. Heart in the right place and all that. I hope we weren't such dicks as to drive him/her away, and that he/she continues to post.
What you don't seem to realize is that the forum veterans are ALSO trying to help the newer players. That's frankly the only reason I'm responding in this thread. The game veterans are much less likely to need to be steered clear of misinformation, and my fellow forum veterans already know pretty much everything the others are saying. We're not posting for ourselves here. We're posting for newer players.
On the surface, Zhadu gives good advice. Broad Sword/Regen, Broad Sword/Willpower and Spines/Electric are good combinations. A new player might really enjoy them.
But some of the REASONS are wrong. For instance, let's say you're a new player that wants a Scrapper where "For single target damage, there is no equal." So you read the forum, see this post from an experienced player, and pick up a Broad Sword/Regen, say. Now, it's a good combination, and some big orange numbers float up, and it's an easy game, so you'll probably be happy enough for a while. So you sink a couple hundred hours against it, and then run across a Dark/Shield scrapper doing fully TWICE the single target damage you are, and you wonder what the hell just happened. What happened is you chose the wrong combination for your goals, based on some misinformation on the forum. It might be a great build for someone with other goals (I LOVE my namesake Katana/Regen, which is pretty much the same thing). But it isn't a great build for YOU. Now you get to start over, 200 hours down the drain, older but wiser. Soon you'll be a cynical old veteran, trying to steer new players away from bad advice.
The veterans, particularly the forum veterans, don't need to be warned that Broad Sword isn't so good for single target DPS. They probably know it, or know someone to ask. It's the newer players we're trying to help by pointing out that this information is simply incorrect.
Also, as you yourself said, "You can still see posts up in the forum where people are asking 'what is the best powerset to pair with /powersetx' or 'is xyz/abc a good combo'". This forum is already filled with questions and information useful to new players. So it's not like Zhadu's post was the first water after a long drought. Instead, some very basic but decent suggestions and advice got combined with some unfortunate misinformation for new players. The forum has a lot of information for new players already. It doesn't need misinformation for new players.
That's not the same as saying, "don't post unless you know what you're talking about." You should feel free to post even when you have no idea what you're talking about. But if you don't know what you're talking about, it's best to avoid trying to come off as an authority on the subject.
Let's say I want to post to a food forum. It's a food forum frequented by a lot of professional chefs and nutritionists, some good cooks, and even some bad cooks and people new to cooking, just looking for advice. And let's say I want to talk about mac and cheese. Here's what I should NOT post:
"I've been cooking for myself for 20 years now, so I know what I'm doing. And I LOVE mac and cheese. If you want a good meal, you should make yourself some mac and cheese. It's the healthiest thing you can eat, bar none! Just take a box of Kraft, boil the macaroni for 20 minutes, strain, throw in some butter and milk and the cheese packet, and stir. Yummo!"
Can you see the problem? Can you see why some chefs and nutritionists might respond to it, explaining that macaroni and cheese doesn't qualify as health food? That if you boil it for 20 minutes, it will be mush? That as budding chefs, you might want to try making a baked macaroni and cheese from scratch rather than using Kraft, and that you'll probably find it much tastier? As with our thread, those chefs and nutritionists aren't posting for each other's benefit. It isn't news to them. They're posting for the people who don't know better.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
Quote:
wow
|
Originally Posted by ______
I love how someone comes in to post some good builds for newer players and is attacked. You guys make it seem like this is the "veteran" forum and newer players are not allowed and make it seem like newer players dont look in here when I know for a fact that they do look in here and they do exist. You can still see posts up in the forum where people are asking "what is the best powerset to pair with /powersetx" or "is xyz/abc a good combo" some of my friends and family that just began playing will look here for good combos from time to time and its sad that the mindframe of the forum is "dont come here looking for information for newer players because you wont get any"
Thank you OP for your post giving your experience with these powersets I'm sure that someone somewhere will find them very helpful, and I'm pretty sure newer players arent going to worry about a 20% increase in dps vs an 18% increase or if one power activates .03~ seconds faster. Most new players when they first start are thinking "Oooh this power comes up fast with big numbers over the baddie I like" .... or maybe thats just me when I first started lol.... |
Quote:
I just love how you stereotype without considering the intent and motivations of why veteran posters will correct misinformation. |
Originally Posted by ______
I love how someone comes in to post some good builds for newer players and is attacked. You guys make it seem like this is the "veteran" forum and newer players are not allowed and make it seem like newer players dont look in here when I know for a fact that they do look in here and they do exist. You can still see posts up in the forum where people are asking "what is the best powerset to pair with /powersetx" or "is xyz/abc a good combo" some of my friends and family that just began playing will look here for good combos from time to time and its sad that the mindframe of the forum is "dont come here looking for information for newer players because you wont get any"
Thank you OP for your post giving your experience with these powersets I'm sure that someone somewhere will find them very helpful, and I'm pretty sure newer players arent going to worry about a 20% increase in dps vs an 18% increase or if one power activates .03~ seconds faster. Most new players when they first start are thinking "Oooh this power comes up fast with big numbers over the baddie I like" .... or maybe thats just me when I first started lol.... |
The OP gave good power set suggestions with bad information. No one is disputing that sword/wp and sword/regen aren't good (though not the "BEST"). They are disputing the "facts" that come along with it, which are WRONG.
This forum, like any online subcommunity, has a tenor and tone. It's helpful but most of the prominent posters are min-maxers. The good thing about min-maxers are that they're blunt and will try to be as correct and as truthful as possible. The bad thing about min-maxers are that they're blunt...feelings can sometimes get hurt, especially if a poster is confronted with truthful information, even if it's presented in a non-confrontational way.
I personally think it is for the very reason that this forum is populated by numbers-oriented forum personalities that new and veteran players seek it out. They know they'll get the truth. It may not be candy coated but correct information is always more valuable than exaggerations or outright falsehoods.
Points well taken. You are correct Werner. I like your approach. I agree with what you said, and WILL try very hard to avoid missleading players with incorrect information in the future... ...OK, I'm back. Had to break for lunch. The Kraft dinner analogy got me hungry. Just a second while I remove my gloves... I appologized. Posted my appology on every one of my posts previously, after which I was told in no uncertain terms via email by a couple of individuals (no one on this thread) to never post here again. Well, that kinda crap doesn't stop me if those people are reading this. I will continue to post here and anywhere else I like. Report me if I make you cry too much. I WILL be much more careful in what I say. I'm not going to put myself in this position again, believe me. It's very distasteful to me. My fault. I WAS WRONG!!! That's a shout out to the few dead horse kickers. Your free kicks are officially used up now! I deserved it up to this point. No point in arguing from a weak position. It WON'T happen again. Next time, I'll be kicking back.
Heh. I think you have the right attitude about further abuse, and I apologize if I was too, uh, blunt? I haven't read the other threads, but at least based on this thread, you've done nothing even CLOSE to "leave this forum" worthy. You have not been rude, haven't bad-mouthed anyone, and have backed off of statements as you've gotten more information. You've been perfectly reasonable the whole time. That's, uh... kinda rare on forums. So welcome.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
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I'm not, but then, I never am.|
Originally Posted by Werner
Heh. I think you have the right attitude about further abuse, and I apologize if I was too, uh, blunt?
|
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| I haven't read the other threads, but at least based on this thread, you've done nothing even CLOSE to "leave this forum" worthy. |
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OK. You like accuracy? I'll start practicing here and now.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
I'm not, but then, I never am.
I think what sparked most of the antagonism was the fact that he posted on every single forum with what amounted to the exact same information. When he made his apology, it was the exact same post that he just made, once again, in every single forum. It's not entirely what he said, however incorrect it might have been, because we're rather used to incorrect information being posted (which is why you had people like us correcting him so viciously so quickly). It's more how he decided to post all of it. |
I originally posted all archetypes in two posts, one for CoV, the other for CoH on the general archetypes forum. I forgot to flag COH (another mistake you can exploit). I then posted the pulled out specific archetypes for the specific forum for said archetype - scrappers in scrappers, controllers in controllers. Yes, I had the same lead-in paragraphs but not the same information build. It was not the "exact same" information. Yes, there was some overlap of the individual builds that were also on the larger posts on the general archetype forum. So there was some overlap of the information in all the posts. I'm not going to work out the percentages. I'll leave that up to you. Work it out and get back to me on that, will you. I'm curious.
I spammed an apology? I'll write variations on the theme next time.
Also, my original posts were not posted in every single forum. I didn't post in Dominators, Kheldians and Soldiers of Arachnos. That's not "every single formum". I'm sorry for the correction but that is a 23% difference (I divided 3 by 13? Is that right?) You have corrected me for far less of a percentage. If we're being fair. Well, at least I don't correct viciously. You'd be mad at me right now if I did, instead of taking this in stride as I know you are. Curious. By "vicously", do you mean in such a way as to humiliate as well as correct? You may want to re-think that approach.
>It's more how he decided to post all of it.
And you're the post monitor are you?
I'll run things past you next time to get your permision.
Z'ha'dum.
By-the-way, thanks for the welcome Werner.
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Oh, sure, and I know you might not think it yet, but Umbral's actually one of the most helpful people on the forum. Knows his stuff. Particularly prolific with his excellent build advice. But he tends to be very blunt, and can rub some people the wrong way. At least his signature comes with a warning. |
Originally Posted by Zhadu_
By-the-way, thanks for the welcome Werner.
|
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
After playing every Archetype and about 200+ toons later,
some only to level 20, others past 40, I would like to share
some observations and perhaps save someone else the
time it took me to learn some of these interesting builds.
I'm not going into great detail. There is lots of information
on most of the archetypes in the forums. I'm just going
to mention a few types I found to work real well and why,
and a pointer or two in the build.
All primary and secondary powers in the hands of a good
player can work well, BUT there are some power combinations
that work better. It is usually because the primary and secondaries
work better together, they have a certain synergy. A good example
would be the power RAIN OF FIRE combined with TAR PATCH.
Tar patch not only slows down the enemies but also has a damage
resistance debuff, increasing the fires damage. This game has many
such synergies and I have spent years experimenting with them.
All Archetypes have them and they are there to discover.
Here are a couple that work very well:
SCRAPPERS
Broad Sword/Regen or Broad Sword/Will Power (Damage and tough)
For single target damage, there is no equal. Make sure to pick up
PARRY and TOUGH (power pool) to make this scrapper one of the
hardest to kill, almost to tank-like levels. PARRY and TOUGH make your regen powers fly.
Both powers are good to get for your Will power secondary as well
but will not be as dramatically noticeable as with regen due to the
fact that a regen has very little defence to begin with so every little
bit really helps. Don't pick up SLASH, use SLICE and PARRY as your
fill-in attacks instead. PARRY is not as damaging as SLICE but it isn't
bad and adds 15% to your melee defence each time it hits. It stacks too.
Use PARRY in your attack chain especially if taking on some damage.
I've amazed teams with this builds ability to live in the face of incredible odds.
Spines/Electric Armor (AOE Monster)
This one is the most fun scrapper I have ever played.
Lots of AoE attacks, slightly better damage resistance than other
armours (26% in stead of 22%). Two endurance buffs (Power Sink, Energize).
And on top of all this - LIGHTNING REFLEXES, making all of your powers recharge
faster (including your heal - ENERGIZE). In essence, a 20% faster attack means 20%
more damage over time. Other secondary powers could be FIRE or DARK Armor but
both of these have weaknesses that Electric doesn't have - DARK has no endurance
buffs. FIRE, although has an endurance reclaiming power, is a weaker armour in general.
I've played both these secondaries with Spines and find the Electric armor to be the best -
The damage is equal to FIRE, better than DARK. The defence is better than both, The
endurance reclaiming is better than FIRE and far better than DARK (which has none).