What can the other secondaries do better than /Shield?

I'm a big fan of running the Hess TF with all Scrappers and it seems like when I do, if there is a full team of eight, four or even five of the Scrappers will have /Shield as a secondary. I'm not saying I have any problem with /Shield, in fact, I have a level 50 Fire/Shield that is probably my third favorite Scrapper but I've seen too many conversations lately where a person new to Scrappers is told to make a Shield Scrapper because it's pointless to play anything else now. I don't agree with that, and it makes me sad.

So, I was thinking that in order to be able to make alternate suggestions for those new to Scrappers, I'd get some pointers from the experts. Basically, what do you all feel that other secondaries do better than /Shield? I'd just like to have the best argument possible available so that I can maybe convince some people of reasons that they might play something that they find fun other than /Shield.

I mean, I was flat out told tonight that no Scrapper combination could out perform /Shield, in any arena. That even if other Scrappers can say, run solo missions +4 x8, they can't do it as fast as /Shield can. And the problem I'm having with that is that those new to Scrappers that are bombarded with this way of thinking might be persuaded against other sets that they might enjoy.

That, and honestly, I'd just like to see a bit more variety out there, heh.

So, thoughts?

And thanks!

*shrug*

I do think that /SD is arguably the most effective Scrapper secondary. I also think that doesn't make the other secondaries pointless, far from it in fact.

Even if /SD was the best secondary, (I don't believe it's possible for a secondary to be objectively "best" but w/e, for the sake of argument), it still doesn't invalidate the other secondaries.

Dark can reach similar levels of mitigation, has better esoteric protection/resists and has a stupidly large heal on top of it.

SR is easier to softcap, has much better DDR and a recharge buff.

Invuln has better resists, a better HP buff and can get comparably high defenses.

Regen has QR, MoG which is fantastic and benefits a lot more from player skill than SD. It is also similarly punitive for not paying attention/lack of skill.

WP has better regen, can have comparable defense and QR.

Elec has better endurance management tools, better resists and a recharge buff.

Fire...well, I think Fire Armor needs some help to be honest. SD offers both better offense and protection than it.

Shields is cool and all but I find SR to be the bees knees in terms of straight up survivability. I should note that my experience with SR is from a Brute perspective while my SD experience is with Scrappers.

Wasn't /invuln used to set the record for soiling the most simultaneous gm-created AVs?

Can /Shield beat the record?

Alright. Yeah, I can see what you mean (I think). Some people, especially veteran MMO players, sometimes consider the best combo to be the baseline and everything else to be gimped, and might avoid even trying other sets if they're told Shield is king. I'm stuck in the CoH mentality where everyone is awesome and some are just a little bit more awesome than others, and didn't make the jump to a potential new player's perspective.

Personally, what I would say other secondaries can do better than shield is survive on SOs. If we're coming at this from the perspective of a new player, they aren't going to be IOing their scrappers out the wazoo yet. On SOs, without any extra defense boosting powers bar maybe CJ, shield is gonna be pretty squishy compared to several of the other secondaries. AAO and shield charge will help by lowering the amount of time enemies have to shoot at you, but on SOs shield charge won't be up every spawn, and leveraging AAO with just shield's base defense is risky.

Basically, I think we're all a bit too used to having IO builds, or even just the experience to leverage things like AAO without getting killed. For a player new to scrappers who's going to be using SOs/generics, many of the other secondaries are likely going to be easier to use and survive with.

This thread was a good read.

I think I had my first real taste of powerset envy when I kept checking back into the Pylon Results thread.

Seeing FM/SD and DM/SD break the 300DPS mark while my claws/sr hit the wall at 200 was, quite frankly, kinda sad.

Made me annoyed that I couldn't make a claws/sd, regardless of the fact that such a combo would have even MORE ridiculous amounts of AoE damage.

I think there is a *max* performance bias with those who claim /sd is top and they may only be thinking about liminal perfomance - /sd benefits most from IO's and Hami-O's by a lot. Only using *SO's,* /shield, as has been stated, is far from the best in survivability or:

/sr - fast/light feel, +recharge, easy to soft-cap *with DDR*
/wp - great endurance, great regen, good resistance/health
/regen - have to watch health and plan a little, but can be great and very durable
/invuln - layered protection, performs best when in the frey of a lot of enemies that will survive the hero's alpha - something underused by the devs.

I dont know much about /da, and i wasnt impressed with /fa, but /SD and /FA have one thing in common they do a good job at enhancing damage, which is very important in mitigation. And that being said the faster you can kill everything the more survivable you are. This is a great benefit in this game.

Primaries not withstanding (and they contribute significatly to survivability, especially when seriously considering how to pair with the secondary), there are several secondaries that outperform /sd.

The big Q, in general, is what do want to do with the end build, and thus, in what areas are they performing so well?

Other secondaries are better at using Katana, Spines, Claws, and Dual Blades.

DA, WP, Regen, and Fiery are better at self-rezzing.

DA, EL, Fiery, Invuln, and to a lesser extent Regen are better at having special effect auras.

DA, EL, Fiery, Regen, and to a lesser extent WP and Invuln are better at self-healing. This can mean they are better at making a mistake and recovering (much like self-rezzing, only without the defeat).

The ma/sd is pure concept. I'll be happy with whatever he manages to max out at. I've spent 5 years trying to find a concept that fit what *I* would be if suddenly back in great shape and dropped into Paragon City.

With the new punches in MA and a pothole cover for a shield, I finally got what I want. Some fisticuffs and a little shield bashing. Looks just like me. Or rather, would if I took the 30 pounds of fat covering my muscles and turned it into muscle.

I guess we'll see how far the Incarnate levels can push your MA/SD, huh?

I am looking forward to making my Fire/Fire/Fire even more powerful with the system. Can't wait to have a taste of it in a couple of months here.

My hope on the Incarnate front is that BAB figures out how to completely remove redraw penalties from the weapon sets.

It'll be a big bummer to have to avoid using some signature attack because it kills Bill's DPS due to redraw.