At those levels, I don't see much of a difference in survivavility between the 2.
Don't forget that shield has AAO, and my guess is that he/she is getting way more agro than you. Unless he/she didn't pick it up at 16, in that case... I don't know what I'm talking about 
In the teens, ALL* Scrappers suck.
I don't have experience with Electrical Melee, but neither Shield Defense nor Super Reflexes are particularly good in the low levels. Super Reflexes simply blooms late, and Shield Defense gets better offense by sacrificing survivability, at least when not IO'd to the teeth or backed up by something like Parry from Broad Sword or Siphon Life from Dark Melee. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from a single comparison of your level 16 Elec/SR vs. someone else's level 17 Elec/Shield. Oh, and yeah, as Iggy indicates, they might have already picked up their taunt aura, so might have had a lot more incoming damage than you.
*except the ones that don't
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"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
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Electric/SR *is* better at lower levels. It has higher base defense and it's utilities (quickness, passives) come relatively early. |
Originally Posted by JanusFrs
Despite what I've heard about Elec/Shield, I must say, at low levels, it really isn't amazing me. My Elec/SR scrapper seems to be a lot more surviveable than an Elec/Shield I teamed up with, who even was one level over myself! We are, for the record, talking about a level 16 Elec/SR scrapper and a level 17 Elec/shield scrapper.
(For the record, this thread is made as a discussion thread about elec/sr vs. elec/shield) |
AAO and Shield charge however is game changing. Once he has a few slots in SC your Electric/SR will be weeping. Your SR will be weeping even more once the shield character is soft capped, which essentially gives it everything your SR has but with the added benefit of the things in shields. At the high end, when both characters are soft capped and heavily IO'ed, there is nothing that a SR character can do that the shield character can't do better.
I love SR as a secondary, but it has become eclipsed by shield defense. I think the only non-RP reason now to make a SR instead of shield character is that some great primaries (claws, katana) can't be paired with shields.
Iggy, for a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about, you know what you're talking about xP as for the rest of course. Yes, he did have AAO which gave him more aggro, but the odd thing though, is that it seemed like I dealt more damage overall than he (Though, I had both TS and JL, he only had TS, so that's gotta say something). As for those of you who saying that SR will suck later on compared to SD, thanks for that :P But anyway, I know that SD has some points that make SR cry, and viceversa; this is the reason I made my Elec/SR: Firstly because I wanted a character that felt like he could be as powerful against one enemy as against 10; secondly, I wanted to try making a character that had the same characteristics as SD without being an SD, ya know, to be unique.
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Then you probably should have picked a different primary. Electric's single target damage is better than....Spines, and that's about it. Every other available set has better single target potential.
| I wanted a character that felt like he could be as powerful against one enemy as against 10 |
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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. |
Elec/shields get it's 2 defining powers at level 32 and 35.
I gotta make pain. I gotta make things right. I gotta stop what's comin'. 'Least I gotta try.
Late-game and IOs allow SD to pull way, WAY ahead of SR. As Fury Flechette said, with IO's, there's nothing SR can do that SD can't.
I have a softcapped elec/shield. He is an AoE damage powerhouse, steamrolling everything in his path. Shield Charge and AAO make it possible. Just tonight I reworked his build in Mid's to give him softcapped defense AND perma-hasten. Show me an SR that can compete with that.
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Well I don't know...
Have you taken down a double RWZ challenge spawn with that ele/shields of yours?
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I agree with this.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Enigma
Late-game and IOs allow SD to pull way, WAY ahead of SR. As Fury Flechette said, with IO's, there's nothing SR can do that SD can't.
I have a softcapped elec/shield. He is an AoE damage powerhouse, steamrolling everything in his path. Shield Charge and AAO make it possible. Just tonight I reworked his build in Mid's to give him softcapped defense AND perma-hasten. Show me an SR that can compete with that. |
Having said that I'm currently levelling 2 SR Scrappers not Shield. The reason - I play lots of alts and an SR outperforms (survivability wise) a Shield while levelling and can be softcapped on a small budget.
So IMO if you want to pile loads of cash into a single character and make him amazing go Shield, if you want a very good alt on a budget go SR.
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
My Elec/SD is at 28 currently. It performs well, and I'm starting to see similar glimmers of potential that I saw playing my DM/SD. The prospect of having a fully IOed Elec/SD is tantalizing to say the least.
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This simply proves two things: 1. A LOT of people have an Elec/SD, barely noone have an Elec/SR, so I like being one of those that have. 2. It seems like very few of you really consider my choice creative. Let me say it this way: I cannot make a /SD or SD/ character that doesn't feel slow, I don't mean he is slowly progressing in battle, I just mean he looks clumpsy and tight, where a /SR feels free and fast moving, as he/she doesn't need to wear a big shield at their left arm.
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Originally Posted by JanusFrs
This simply proves two things: 1. A LOT of people have an Elec/SD, barely noone have an Elec/SR, so I like being one of those that have. 2. It seems like very few of you really consider my choice creative. Let me say it this way: I cannot make a /SD or SD/ character that doesn't feel slow, I don't mean he is slowly progressing in battle, I just mean he looks clumpsy and tight, where a /SR feels free and fast moving, as he/she doesn't need to wear a big shield at their left arm.
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I don't have any problem with your choice, and I don't consider it uncreative. It's just that in the late game Elec/Shield (when heavily IOed) will outperform Elec/SR in identical situations.
The advantages you have:
Quickness
Cheaper to softcap
95% defense debuff resistance without slotting Hami-Os
Advantages Shield has:
Against All Odds
Shield Charge
Max HP boost
Built in resistance in Deflection and True Grit (that doesn't require your HP to drop first)
Non-crashing tier 9 (it does crash, but it doesn't take your entire end bar)
There's nothing wrong with SR, just that Shield outperforms it when you start getting into high dollar, push-the-envelope builds.
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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. |
On equal budgets SR and SD will give you different options. SR easily caps DDR and get to the soft cap on defense, plus who doesnt like Quickness. SD takes a lot of investment to soft cap and arguably way more investment to cap DDR. But SD offers a damage boost, extra hit points, Shield Charge, and like others have said a better tier 9 option. With all of that going for SD it makes sense that it costs more to get up the SR levels of defense and DDR.
i would argue that SR is easier to perma Hasten with Quickness, so depending on what a player wants they might choose different things.
Poisonous Ice 50 Ice/Rad
Icy Jax 50 Ice/SS
Jaxon Penn 50 Shield/Mace
Cpt Clax 50 Thugs/Dark
Lady BlackIce 50 Dark/Cold
Lady Black Ice 50 Dark/Ice
Bella Jax 50 Storm/Sonic
Operative Jax 50 SoA
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TA/A-Plant/TA-Bots/TA
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Can one of you forum vets please, please help all of us n00bs understand how totally wrong it is to make final judgements on power set combos without having experienced those power sets up to say..lvl 38 when the secondary's tier9 has kicked in?|
Originally Posted by JanusFrs
Despite what I've heard about Elec/Shield, I must say, at low levels, it really isn't amazing me. My Elec/SR scrapper seems to be a lot more surviveable than an Elec/Shield I teamed up with, who even was one level over myself! We are, for the record, talking about a level 16 Elec/SR scrapper and a level 17 Elec/shield scrapper.
(For the record, this thread is made as a discussion thread about elec/sr vs. elec/shield) |
I think it would be better for all of us in the long run
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A maxed out elec/shield plays like this:|
Originally Posted by milehigh77
Can one of you forum vets please, please help all of us n00bs understand how totally wrong it is to make final judgements on power set combos without having experienced those power sets up to say..lvl 38 when the secondary's tier9 has kicked in?
I think it would be better for all of us in the long run |
Walk into a spawn... shield charge.. hit the few things you missed and the bosses... walk to the next spawn... lightning rod... hit the few things you missed and the bosses... walk to the next spawn shield charge... etc etc.. Every 15 seconds or so you kill a full spawn. Survivability isn't an issue as you can have soft-capped defenses while still maintaining the damage needed to do what I just described.
With SR:
With /SR you can run around with equal, or slightly better survivability... you get extra help in the recharge area to get your attacks up sooner... but not having shield charge means you have 1 nuke instead of 2. You'll not be able to kill a spawn every 15 seconds.. instead you'll kill 1 in 20 seconds (less then with shield because you don't have AAO fueling the ligihtning rod or your other attacks).. then take 30-45 seconds killing another spawn waiting for lightnign rod to recharge... lightning rod will recharge in 30 seconds, but you'll want to save it for a fresh spawn. So you'll only use your nuke every 50-60 seconds or so on every 2nd spawn. So you end up taking 80-100% more time sweeping a mission clean.
I wish it wasn't this way... I personally feal shields is unbalanced. It shouldn't have both solid defense AND the best damage boost, but it does. These days, I play my /SR toon or level up an alt. My /shields toon was robbed of IOs and left on a server I don't play anymore.
I gotta make pain. I gotta make things right. I gotta stop what's comin'. 'Least I gotta try.
Rehashing a bit, I think the general argument for Shield Defense over Super Reflexes goes like this:
Code:
It's a bit simplistic. It takes a lot more work to soft cap a Shield Defense, and that's work that could have gone elsewhere - endurance reduction, recharge, what have you. The 95% DDR requires a level 50 with serious recharge and Hamios, and there's at least a possibility that the devs consider it an exploit, and that it may go away in a future issue. I haven't looked carefully, but I think the scaling resistance is in the same neighborhood as the more straightforward resistance on Shield Defense. Super Reflexes gets Quickness, which can help you get into better attack chains, which can at least narrow the gap on the damage front in some cases. SD SR
------- -------
Soft Cap yes yes
DDR 95% 95%
Resistance yes scaling
Hit points yes no
Damage Buff yes no
Shield Charge Woohoo! Curses!
Still, I'll agree that generally speaking, for a maxed out level 50, Shield Defense is everything that Super Reflexes is AND MORE. If you're not on a maxed out 50, I think you can much more easily argue for Super Reflexes.
As far as balancing the two, I'd start by making the DDR in Active Defense unenhanceable, as appears intended from it not accepting defense IOs, but some dev forgot about Hamios in the rush to put the set into play. Then 95% defense debuff resistance is something that only Super Reflexes offers, something to make it special. And then just track that for a while. Might be enough of a nerf, since I think it's mostly on the maxed-out builds that Shield Defense pulls significantly ahead.
"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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Originally Posted by Shred_Monkey
A maxed out elec/shield plays like this:
Walk into a spawn... shield charge.. hit the few things you missed and the bosses... walk to the next spawn... lightning rod... hit the few things you missed and the bosses... walk to the next spawn shield charge... etc etc.. Every 15 seconds or so you kill a full spawn. Survivability isn't an issue as you can have soft-capped defenses while still maintaining the damage needed to do what I just described. With SR: With /SR you can run around with equal, or slightly better survivability... you get extra help in the recharge area to get your attacks up sooner... but not having shield charge means you have 1 nuke instead of 2. You'll not be able to kill a spawn every 15 seconds.. instead you'll kill 1 in 20 seconds (less then with shield because you don't have AAO fueling the ligihtning rod or your other attacks).. then take 30-45 seconds killing another spawn waiting for lightnign rod to recharge... lightning rod will recharge in 30 seconds, but you'll want to save it for a fresh spawn. So you'll only use your nuke every 50-60 seconds or so on every 2nd spawn. So you end up taking 80-100% more time sweeping a mission clean. I wish it wasn't this way... I personally feal shields is unbalanced. It shouldn't have both solid defense AND the best damage boost, but it does. These days, I play my /SR toon or level up an alt. My /shields toon was robbed of IOs and left on a server I don't play anymore. |
You forgot fireball, all us cool kids in the ElM/SD club go pyre mastery.
We walk in, soak up some AAO then SC, Thunder Strike and Fireball. Then move to the next spawn and drop a Lightning Rod, Thunder Strike and Fireball. Who needs single target attacks?
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I realized one day that my DM/SR scrapper had never gotten TF Commander, because she never ran Posi TF. That was not an experience I would care to repeat. Defensive sets generally don't handle exemping down as well as resistance sets do.
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Originally Posted by JanusFrs
We are, for the record, talking about a level 16 Elec/SR scrapper and a level 17 Elec/shield scrapper.
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Even without consideration of the overall merits of either set, if the other guy didn't have his powers slotted correctly you will do better than him.|
Originally Posted by JanusFrs
Despite what I've heard about Elec/Shield, I must say, at low levels, it really isn't amazing me. My Elec/SR scrapper seems to be a lot more surviveable than an Elec/Shield I teamed up with, who even was one level over myself! We are, for the record, talking about a level 16 Elec/SR scrapper and a level 17 Elec/shield scrapper.
(For the record, this thread is made as a discussion thread about elec/sr vs. elec/shield) |
A head-to-head comparison is only possible if you're playing the characters yourself, making similar slotting decisions and adapting your tactics to each character's strengths and weaknesses.
I created a Broadsword/SD character along with two other players who made a BS/SD and a Fire/SD character. I never face-planted, but the other two did occasionally. I use Mids to design my characters, always IO them, use inspirations liberally (they always come right back), and at every opportunity use terrain to block ranged attacks forcing enemies to close to melee. One of the other players doesn't really get IOs and forgets about inspirations, the other delays getting IOs till higher levels and has a thing about not using inspirations.
Your knowledge and skill may well be a better indicator of your survivability at level 16 than the inherent strengths of SR and SD.
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Well, if we're looking specifically at the OP's scenario, most likely it is a result of the /Shield scrapper having AAO which is a really strong taunt aura. He was taunting the badguys off the /SR toon, keeping the /SR alive even longer while the /shield toon took more damage... even though though no one knew it, that's probably what was happening.
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Originally Posted by Rodion
Even without consideration of the overall merits of either set, if the other guy didn't have his powers slotted correctly you will do better than him.
A head-to-head comparison is only possible if you're playing the characters yourself, making similar slotting decisions and adapting your tactics to each character's strengths and weaknesses. I created a Broadsword/SD character along with two other players who made a BS/SD and a Fire/SD character. I never face-planted, but the other two did occasionally. I use Mids to design my characters, always IO them, use inspirations liberally (they always come right back), and at every opportunity use terrain to block ranged attacks forcing enemies to close to melee. One of the other players doesn't really get IOs and forgets about inspirations, the other delays getting IOs till higher levels and has a thing about not using inspirations. Your knowledge and skill may well be a better indicator of your survivability at level 16 than the inherent strengths of SR and SD. |
I gotta make pain. I gotta make things right. I gotta stop what's comin'. 'Least I gotta try.
Quote:
I must apologize if this reply will seem mean, but do me a favour sir: Stop treating me like a freaking noob!! I have played the game long enough to *imagine* the power an Elec/Shield can perform compared to an Elec/SR, I have even had the chance to see one in action. All I wanted to point out here, more or less, is that I felt more surviveable with my Elec/SR than an Elec/Shield I teamed with. And appearently, surviveabilty is more intense on /SR than on /SD, depending on what we talk about in surviveability.|
Originally Posted by milehigh77
Can one of you forum vets please, please help all of us n00bs understand how totally wrong it is to make final judgements on power set combos without having experienced those power sets up to say..lvl 38 when the secondary's tier9 has kicked in?
I think it would be better for all of us in the long run |
That out of the way, another interesting thing was said:
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Originally Posted by Shred_Monkey
A maxed out elec/shield plays like this:
Walk into a spawn... shield charge.. hit the few things you missed and the bosses... walk to the next spawn... lightning rod... hit the few things you missed and the bosses... walk to the next spawn shield charge... etc etc.. Every 15 seconds or so you kill a full spawn. Survivability isn't an issue as you can have soft-capped defenses while still maintaining the damage needed to do what I just described. With SR: With /SR you can run around with equal, or slightly better survivability... you get extra help in the recharge area to get your attacks up sooner... but not having shield charge means you have 1 nuke instead of 2. You'll not be able to kill a spawn every 15 seconds.. instead you'll kill 1 in 20 seconds (less then with shield because you don't have AAO fueling the ligihtning rod or your other attacks).. then take 30-45 seconds killing another spawn waiting for lightnign rod to recharge... lightning rod will recharge in 30 seconds, but you'll want to save it for a fresh spawn. So you'll only use your nuke every 50-60 seconds or so on every 2nd spawn. So you end up taking 80-100% more time sweeping a mission clean. I wish it wasn't this way... I personally feal shields is unbalanced. It shouldn't have both solid defense AND the best damage boost, but it does. These days, I play my /SR toon or level up an alt. My /shields toon was robbed of IOs and left on a server I don't play anymore. |
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Quote:
In fact, I might want to give some more details about the team. We were: Me (lvl 16 elec/SR scrap), a fire/axe tanker with BA at lvl 16, an empath/Arch Def at lvl 10 (so lvl 15) and the elec/shield with AAO at lvl 17 (lvl 16). |
Originally Posted by Shred_Monkey
Well, if we're looking specifically at the OP's scenario, most likely it is a result of the /Shield scrapper having AAO which is a really strong taunt aura. He was taunting the badguys off the /SR toon, keeping the /SR alive even longer while the /shield toon took more damage... even though though no one knew it, that's probably what was happening.
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So, to make it seem more odd, the mobs actually attacked the /shield more than the tank, although the tank had an actual damaging taunt aura. I assume this is a question about taunt mag, and then the scrap had more attacks that likely reched faster, althought it doesn't matter because of the taunt effect. So yeah, basically I didn't get all that aggro, although I actually had to deal with a lot of free runners that decided to attack the def or that simply wasn't near the tank.
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Quote:
Given your title of the topic and that you don't seem to realize just how significant shield charge and lightning rod are to the combination, I'd arrive at a similar judgment. Don't count your chickens until they are hatched.|
Originally Posted by JanusFrs
I must apologize if this reply will seem mean, but do me a favour sir: Stop treating me like a freaking noob!! I have played the game long enough to *imagine* the power an Elec/Shield can perform compared to an Elec/SR, I have even had the chance to see one in action. All I wanted to point out here, more or less, is that I felt more surviveable with my Elec/SR than an Elec/Shield I teamed with. And appearently, surviveabilty is more intense on /SR than on /SD, depending on what we talk about in surviveability.
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Further, I wouldn't even judge elec/shield's performance until I had thrown in at least a half billion at it at level 50, simply do to the performance the set is capable of.
It will be harder to play a /SD, for the reasons explained above. Your base numbers are lower, and you don't get auto defense powers to further push you toward the softcap. A good rule of thumb is stock up on small lucks to help you on the way to 50. Post 50, orange inspies are a beautiful thing.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Enigma
Late-game and IOs allow SD to pull way, WAY ahead of SR. As Fury Flechette said, with IO's, there's nothing SR can do that SD can't.
I have a softcapped elec/shield. He is an AoE damage powerhouse, steamrolling everything in his path. Shield Charge and AAO make it possible. Just tonight I reworked his build in Mid's to give him softcapped defense AND perma-hasten. Show me an SR that can compete with that. |
You see, this statement, while completely true, makes my blood boil.
BOIL I SAY.
Why are there no resist bonuses in sets? Where is the +10 percent resist all uniques? There should be at least five more sets that are resist bonus oriented. Where are they?
WHERE?
If SR could slot more resist, the brutal nerfing sliding toward shield might not be so inevitable.
Or maybe I'm just paranoid.
Despite what I've heard about Elec/Shield, I must say, at low levels, it really isn't amazing me. My Elec/SR scrapper seems to be a lot more surviveable than an Elec/Shield I teamed up with, who even was one level over myself! We are, for the record, talking about a level 16 Elec/SR scrapper and a level 17 Elec/shield scrapper.
(For the record, this thread is made as a discussion thread about elec/sr vs. elec/shield)
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If a person turns down an idea, he turns down an opportunity to evolve himself