New alt: Dual Blades and...what?

I can't decide on a secondary. Are there any that are particularly good for Dual Blades? Also, should I both with the empower and weaken combos early on? It seems that power slice>nimble slash but nimble slash is needed for both combos. Anyway, thanks!

Willpower goes good with Dual Blades as you really don't have any redraw. Most sets will go good with it. I love my DB/Regen but a lot of people don't like it because of the redraw. As for the empower and weaken combos I don't like them and they're not that good, I would skip them. The only combo you really should do is Attack Vitals.

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Outside of /wp's lack of redraw, I like /sr and /elec for the recharge boost they offer. AV combo is really the one to focus on.

For dual blades, the two biggest considerations are, in my opinion, the fact that you'll likely end up wanting 7 or more attacks from it, and that having lots of click powers could possibly interfere with pulling off combos.

In general, the two combos most often focused on are attack vitals and sweep. Blinding feint -> attack vitals -> repeat is one of the better DPS dual blades attack strings that doesn't require obscene amounts of global recharge (128% total in blinding feint and 109% in sweeping strike - SR and elec can almost pull that off on SOs), and sweep provides some helpful mitigation as well as a bit of extra AoE damage.

However, between those two combos and blinding feint (which you should always take, regardless), you need every attack from dual blades except nimble slash - and nimble slash is requred for the other two combos, so you might even want to take it as well if you plan to exemplar down below the level of the other two combos often. So, dual blades generally demands that you take 7 or 8 powers from the set.

Also, if your defense set has a lot of clicks, you could find yourself in the situation where you have to interrupt your combos in order to fire clicks to keep yourself alive. Now, those clicks don't *end* the combo, but they do make it less likely that you'll be able to execute the next attack before the combo times out.

So if you're concerned about overall efficiency, I would look for armor sets that either a: allow looser builds, b: have relatively few clicks, or c: both.

Several armor sets fit one or the other criteria. Regen, fire, and to some extent dark (and electric if you're willing to skip stamina) can leave you with a couple of power slots to burn. SR, invul, and shield are all relatively passive secondaries, allowing you more time to get your combo on. But in my opinion the best fit is the secondary released at the same time, willpower. The last two powers in the set can be skipped, and you can also skip stamina if you so choose. It's also got exactly two clicks, and one is a self-rez while the other is the 'godmode'. So I would probably suggest willpower as one of the better secondaries for dual blades.

Now, of course, that's absolutely not to say that you couldn't have a perfectly good scrapper with other secondaries. Tight builds and defensive clicks can both be worked around by careful planning, and they aren't deal-breakers even before that.

With scrappers more than probably any other AT, it's *very* hard to put together a broken power combination. You can still *break* any combination by taking bad powers and not slotting well, but no combinations come 'pre-broken', as it were. Dual blades/anything is still going to be a scrapper, and as such, assuming you put together a decent build, it will still flip out and kill things pretty darn good.

Played a DB/SR to 50 in weeks, and I would so do it again, the combo is like finesse and greatness at its best. It is a bit tight but with weave, combat jumping, and the Steadfast you have softcap defenses easy making most PvE content trivial and with very high defense debuff resistance you can eat defense debuffs all day. And if you take it to the next level and get aid self you are probably unstoppable and you won't need your T9.

I would say with DB give SR a try.

Edit: I also agree with Muon, the only two combos I use are empower and Attack Vitals, Weaken is kind of pointless on an SR as you probably don't need the -to hit aspect of it much and it is real easy to get to hit and acc from IOs. But my Attack Chain for taking on Groups is Empower Combo --> Typhoon's edge --> Attack Vitals combo --> Rinse and Repeat, that is good for ST and AoE

Here is another vote for /Super Reflexes. I picked it because a) I grown accustomed to the set and really love it and b) Shield Defense pisses me off because its so much better than Super Reflexes (for most purposes). So, I specifically rolled /SR just because Dual Blades CANT use /Shield. It was nice to play the powerset I like instead of the one I feel obligated to take for power reasons.

Anyway, Dual Blades/Super Reflexes is a lot of fun. Unlike most everyone else, I took Nimble Slash, simply because I wanted every attack, every animation, and every combo, good or bad. I just had to have them all for concept. I'm not a recharge hound so my endgame build will only have 40% global recharge (including Quickness), but hey. It's all good. I will even have softcapped defense, and without taking Weave or Maneuvers. And honestly, for my level ride up, having defenses in the 30s has been fine (tho I admit I team with a friend who plays FF a lot, so sometimes I'm at the soft cap anyway, thanks to teaming).

Lewis

I have a DB/Regen I really enjoy. However, I really can't see it going badly with any secondary we have today.

Like some others, I only really approve of the Attack Vitals combo. I have Power Slice, Blinding Feint, the three attacks for AV, and Typhoon's Edge. I use a mix of Typhoon and Sweeping Strike to downsize large mobs.

Gonna go against the grain here and say that my DB/DA scrapper is a murder machine that stops for nothing. The addition of the ToE proc in Dark Regen and the Perfshifter proc in Stamina made me into a killing machine. If it can't kill me in 17 seconds, it will never kill me. Seriously, the **** is bananas. Even as a lowbie I was turning on Death Shroud and hopping into the mobs, killing the boss and letting the aura kill the rest. The ToE proc turns Dark Regen into an end gainer rather often. I seriously cannot say enough about how much I am loving DB/DA. It made me swear off my BS/SD and Fire/WP scrappers altogether, and I am only level 38!

As far as combos, I ditched the lower ones once I got to 32ish and went with Sweep and Attack Vitals. Levelling maybe you want the lower combos but I didn't fuss about it.

I run db/sr

You only need 5 powers to run bf + attack vitals. BF + attack vitals uses 4 powers and you have to take one of the first 2 powers. The cone on sweeping strike is decent enough I don't mind not having my pbaoe

Am I the only person that thinks the animation for Typhoon's Edge looks ridiculous?

It does look a bit silly, but then again most DB powers past the first ones are all over the top ; granted, it's in a good way, while Typhoon is just... lol.

I say /wp everything, forever. Nothing but /wp.

[and /da sometimes or /fire]