/invul or /shield

ok...first off. I just...need help


I don't know how to work mids, and I've never made a melee toon.


I have no clue what I'm doing xD

I know...I either want /shield or /invul.

I've heard good reviews about both.

and I want to be very surviveable, with...high defense, so I think they're both good for that.


I've thought of, fire or dark for a primary.

I have no idea what power pools to pick, aside from flight which I kind of need for concept but it isn't SUPER crucial.


I don't have THAT much inf....so I can't have an UBER UBER expensive build.


so I'm not really sure what I'm asking...I guess.

maybe some opinions on the primaries and secondaries...maybe suggestions on what power pools to pick?

and maybe some builds?

I don't pvp, so I want this to be pretty beast in pve.

I want good damage, but surviveability trumps damage as a neccesity, I don't want to die.

I'd go with /invul. While you can cap your defense with /shied and get great survivability, it will cost you a significant chunk of influence. /invuln is known for its superior survivability skills, and with the not-so-recent boost it got, it's definitely a viable secondary.

As far as primaries go, fire is always good for tons of damage, while dark is more of a utility set, not to say it doesn't have great damage too. Another thing to consider is that fire is both a great single target killer as well as having good AoE, while dark is pretty much solely a single target specialist.

My recommendation to you, should you still be unsure as to what primary to go with is to try them both to lvl 10 and go with which ever one you like more (or heck, do both!).

I would also say /invul. I'm leveling another /shield scrapper and....he is not the most survivable toon. I have a fully IO'd scrapper and I *know* how good /shield can be, but leveling one up is kind of depressing in comparison. I've seen some /invul scrappers pull off some incredible feats.

As for the primary, I believe that Fire has more damage, whereas Dark has more survivability. Choose which you want.

kk well do you guys have any suggestions for what IO's to put in the invul side?

or what power pools to pick?

and.....how much more surviveability is dark over fire? I like to not die.

Ever since Invulnerability got boosted, it has quickly become one of my favorite secondaries. If you build it well, that set will live up to its name easily.

Shield Defense has also been one of my top picks for secondaries since its release onto the live servers. Not only will you feel sturdy as hell, you will also feel incredibly powerful when fighting lots of enemies.

Either way, both of these are just so much fun to play and very durable. Do you have a character concept in mind? If you do, that could help you out with picking your Primary/Secondary/APP sets.

If you want a very tanky build, Dark Melee/Invulnerability is a very good choice (I'm leveling one now red side). But you'd also be fine with Fire/Invuln. And you can also build Shield Defense to be very survivable, even on a budget.

Quoting myself from another thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Werner On Shield Defense, I'm going to do this: Slot Deflection and Battle Agility with three defense SOs Slot Weave with three defense SOs Slot Combat Jumping with one defense SO Slot Active Defense with three recharge SOs for a nice margin of error Slot a Steadfast Protection unique Take Phalanx Fighting Use a single small purple inspiration at a time as required Never die OK, yes, that technically isn't "just with SOs", but seriously, you can afford a Steadfast Protection. You just can. And if you're being a stickler, then fine, take Manuevers and slot it with two defense, and you'll get the same thing. I suppose you could say that using inspirations isn't "just with SOs", but I'm betting that 99%+ of the player population uses inspirations while leveling, so I'd call that a nonsense argument. Those power choices and that slotting puts me at 32.4% defense. One small purple inspiration puts me at 44.9% defense, effectively soft-capped. I have my status protection. Oh, we're done. That's all you need to be almost unkillable in normal content. You can now focus the rest of your build on destroying your enemies, at which it will excel. Now, I DO recommend taking True Grit and at least slotting heal SOs in it. You'll want to take and slot Tough (had to take it to get to Weave anyway). But seriously, making Shield Defense unkillable is just that easy.

like...how much more surviveablity would you say dark has over fire? both fit my concept. and invul fits my concept more than shield....

I want to be able to fight, but I want to be hard to bring down, my main is a fully IO'd blaster who still draws aggro and then falls splat.

Well, Dark melee is going to be the better pick for survivability if you're pairing it up against Fiery Melee. Dark Melee has Siphon Life to top up your Health often and Dark Consumption to effortlessly fill up your Endurance bar. Fiery Melee just has... damage and more damage.

Also, Dark Melee's secondary is -ToHit. Not a large amount of it, but you can easily stack it up to get a decent amount of -ToHit on your enemies. A nice to have effect, but usually not the main reason that Dark Melee survives better.

dark consumption? does that make me have a giant like.....smokey thing at my feet? because that's really unnappealing XD

The Smoke Monster will not appear at your feet if you use Dark Consumption.

Well I like Shield Defense more than Inv, but you really can't go wrong with either. My Fire/Shield Defense and Dark/Shield Defense were a blast to lvl up to 50.

Dark Melee will make you More survivability because of Siphon Life. It is a great attack and it gives you a little heal every time you use it. So it will just make it that much harder to kill you. The only thing about Dark Melee is the lack of AoE. That's why I love it with Shield Defense, you get a great AoE at lvl 35.

Fire Melee does great ST and AoE damage, but it just does a lot of damage, doesn't really add to your survivability. So if you do when more survivability you will want to go with Dark Melee.

Now for the powers pools I like to take the Fighting pool for Tought and Weave. Weave is a good power to have because it helps you get more defense and closer to the Soft cap. On most of my Scrapper I end up taking the Leaping pool too for combat jumping again for the +defense it gives.

My Characters Deviont Art page Currently-reading Me Skydiving

I was very much impressed with /invul's numbers after I had built a Kat/Invul for ****'s and giggles. Invulnerability will be a very survivable set without much effort at all. Shield, on the other hand, seems to rely a bit too heavily upon Shield Charge and Against all Odds to quickly take down enemies before it gets taken down. You won't get the survivable feeling you want until you slot it out fairly heavily with IO's.

Invulnerability, on the other hand, is very survivable right out of the box, and just continues to get better at it. I actually didn't like pairing it with Katana because parry wasn't doing much for the set and I probably would have preferred to pick a higher DPA set like Fire/Dark melee to take advantage of the self reliant nature of /Invul.

Shield Defense is currently what I consider an "unstable" set as well in that one of it's biggest crutch powers, Shield Charge, is greatly over preforming and scheduled for another look. As the set might wind up as something completely different than it currently is, I don't recommend it easily.

Given what you want out of a Scrapper from your post, I'm going to recommend Invulnerability over Shield Charge in this instance.

Dark Comes with a self heal, which is a big help. If you go with Fire, you'll be somewhat squishier unless you splurge for the Medicine pool and Aid Self. Not squishy, mind you, just squishier, more dependent on greens. But Invunerability's hit points generally move slowly enough to give you time to react.

On the offense front, the main difference between Fire and Dark is your AoE potential. Fire has it; Dark doesn't. So I guess it depends on what you mean by "able to fight". Either will fight just fine, but Fire will tear through larger spawns faster due to better AoE. And with Invuln, you're better off in large spawns.

So I guess my recommendation would be Fire/Invuln. It's tough enough for most things, and will put out more damage. But if you really want to feel Invulnerable, go with Dark/Invuln.

As for how to build it, your first three pools are Fitness, Leaping and Fighting. From Fitness, take Hurdle, Health and Stamina. From Leaping take Combat Jumping (and Super Jump if you want a travel power). From Fighting take either prerequisite (you won't be using it) and Tough and Weave. Your fourth power pool should probably be Speed, Medicine (only on Fire) or Leadership. All have different flavors of what they do for you. Speed brings Dull Pain back faster, and helps out your offense. Medicine gives you a heal, so is pretty straightforward. Leadership gives you Maneuvers for a small defensive boost, and if you take Tactics, you can stick a Gaussian set in it (it could also go in a Build Up power). I personally went with Hasten on my Brute that I'm leveling, but I'm not convinced I made the right choice yet.

From your secondary, I recommend taking everything except Unstoppable. Some people like Unstoppable, but I'm not a fan of crashing tier nines, and I'm already pretty unstoppable. If you go with Dark Melee, Siphon Life is your key attack since it heals you. It's probably worth frankenslotting in the mid game since it's serving double duty as a heal and an attack, and should be spammed in your attack chain.

Pick up a Steadfast Protection unique. Red side, I just put in bids for recipes as infamy came in, and ended up with two of them by the thirties (so one went to storage). Blue side I have buckets of them so it's never been an issue.

End game builds are a different story. A survivability-spec Dark/Invuln is capable of taking on multiple AVs at the same time without temporary powers or inspirations. Probably something to worry about when you get leveled up, unless you like knowing where you're going.

hmm ok.

well I just got a really good build for the /invul part of my set.

now I just need a good build for the primary part.

not sure if i'm going with fire or dark yet, I like the idea of siphon life, but I also like the idea of AOE's...guess I'll play around and see which I like.

and figure out how to get like 3 bill inf ._.

I think if you're mostly planning to play normal content the Fire/Inv will be better for you due to the AoE.

I put together a build you should be able to get with a few hundred mil, which isn't too much in today's CoH. About 200-300mil would be my guess. You should be more than sufficient with endurance and also very survivable.

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