A super reflexes question

Ok as the title alludes to I'm fixing to make my first scrapper in ALONG damn time (read pre issue 7-8 area) that I will be playing regularly and working towards 50.

The build I have in mind is BS/SR. I mostly play tankers and brutes but have been wanting to play broad sword forever and after recently seeing a SR scrapper in action on a ITF (it as db/sr if i am not mistaken) I decided to take SR as a secondary for it

My concerns are Does SR require the fighting pool?? Are there any powers skippable in SR to allow for picking up Medicine pool if fighting is required.

All help is much appreciated so thank you in advance.

Many SR builds will take Fighting in order to put the Steadfast Protection +3% defence IO in Tough, and may also need Weave to soft cap their defences. I'd guess a lot of SR builds would take Fitness, Fighting, a travel pool (usually Leaping for combat jumping) and one of either Medicine, Speed or sometimes Leadership for their pools, although I've seen a few taking Concealment too.

As far as skippable SR powers go, you will need all the toggles and passive powers, and Practised Brawler is essential too. Quickness is just too good to pass up, so that leaves only Elude, which becomes pretty much redundant if you have soft-capped defence.

Like Streetcleaner the only SR power I'd skip is Elude. If you are planning to soft cap there are numerous ways to do it... with and without Weave, though the Steadfast in Tough is very, very helpful. I have aid self on mine but only find myself using it if I want to stand toe to toe with an AV/GM, nothing else.

BS/SR is a lot of fun. Parry will serve you well while levelling up, just remember that you won't need it once soft capped.

BS/SR is quite powerful when built up, speaking from personal experience. Fighting is not necessary, but always nice. Aid Self is not necessary, but always nice. Hasten is not necessary, but always nice. And so on. My own build uses Leaping/Fighting/Fitness/Medicine, though it's an AV soloist, so it kind of needs that combo (though a 3% PvP Def IO would let me drop Leaping for Hasten. Though considering I'll never bother to spend 3 bil on it, I'll probably never have one). Leveling up, I relied primarily on SOed SR and Parry for survivability and I was quite fine. Respeccing and slotting to the soft-cap with Aid Self just made things silly, to the point I outlast some Tanks.

See my sig for a rather long and detailed guide on the powerset combo.

As others have said, Super Reflexes does not require the Fighting pool, but I'd strongly recommend it.

The Fighting pool can give you +9% Defence to all (3 from Steadfast, 6 from slotted Weave), plus +4.6% Defence vs AoE from 5 Aegis in Tough, and +2.5% Ranged from a Red Fortune set in Weave.

Melee Defence wont be an issue if you're happy to lean on Parry, so this gets you over 10% in the 2 positions you need to cap.

And the actual Resistance in Tough is nice to have at times, especially combined with an orange pill or two.

Skip parry hurts your damage (this is more an /sr thing)

Yes you can soft cap with out fighting pool but man does it help when you do get hit and easier to softcap and you can steal fit in aidself done it on my katana/sr

Before Ninja run I used swift + quickness + sprint as travel power (so stack ninja run on that) and in missions you can zip around with swift + quickness and be faster than people with sprint on and if you add in the +7.5% speed boost IO's from the gift of the ancients you can be even faster so speed with no endurance burn yea it rocks

So if you do not need a travel power you have options

I will agree with what others here have said and say that the fighting pool is skippable, but something that adds quite a bit to a SR character. Also Elude is the only skippable power to me, but I am sure there are just as many folks that will swear by it.

My choice for SR is to not only softcap to all positions, but to pursue +regen as well.
Below is a Build that I am pursuing on my SR toon that shows how you can combine Defense and +regen. With a few tweaks, you can get over 400% regen, which makes the medicine pool less of a need, unless you are trying to build an AV Hunter.

Good Luck !

P.S. Dont mind the power selection order, this is an IO template, It does not represent the final power order of my live character, just an IO/slotting guide while I level up.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.707
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Science Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Martial Arts
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Thunder Kick -- P'ngS'Fest-Acc/Dmg(A), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/EndRdx(3), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(17), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(42)
Level 1: Focused Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(7), GftotA-Run+(13), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(40)
Level 2: Storm Kick -- P'ngS'Fest-Acc/Dmg(A), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/EndRdx(3), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(19), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(36), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 4: Focused Senses -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(7), GftotA-Run+(11), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(40)
Level 6: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 8: Crane Kick -- P'ngS'Fest-Acc/Dmg(A), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/EndRdx(9), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(9), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(25), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34)
Level 10: Practiced Brawler -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(11)
Level 12: Cobra Strike -- RzDz-Acc/Rchg(A), RzDz-EndRdx/Stun(13), RzDz-Acc/EndRdx(15), RzDz-Stun/Rng(25), RzDz-Acc/Stun/Rchg(36), RzDz-Immob%(50)
Level 14: Health -- Numna-Heal(A), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(15), Numna-Heal/Rchg(17), RgnTis-Regen+(29)
Level 16: Agile -- S'dpty-Def(A), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx(23), DefBuff-I(31)
Level 18: Dodge -- S'dpty-Def(A), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx(23), DefBuff-I(31)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), EndMod-I(21), P'Shift-End%(34)
Level 22: Quickness -- Run-I(A)
Level 24: Crippling Axe Kick -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(27), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(40), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46), Mako-Dam%(50)
Level 26: Dragon's Tail -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(27), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(34), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46), Oblit-%Dam(46)
Level 28: Lucky -- S'dpty-Def(A), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx(29), DefBuff-I(48)
Level 30: Boxing -- P'ngS'Fest-Acc/Dmg(A), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/EndRdx(31)
Level 32: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ImpArm-ResDam(33), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(33), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(33)
Level 35: Evasion -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(37), GftotA-Run+(37), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(37)
Level 38: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(39), GftotA-Run+(39), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(39)
Level 41: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(42), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Heal(45), Numna-Heal(45), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(45)
Level 47: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(48), GftotA-Run+(48), Ksmt-ToHit+(50)
Level 49: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Clrty-Stlth(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 0: Ninja Run

Parry is great for the levelling SR. It makes those pre-22 levels so very much easier. It can be respec'd out of later.

With SR + fighting I don't know that I'd get fancy with all the set bonuses being thrown around. The nice thing about SR is you can cap without any of that.

Your best bet for SR is Tough with the Steadfast Def IO, slotted Weave, slotted Combat Jumping, and a full set of Gaussian's in Focused Accuracy or Build Up. That's all that's needed to soft cap.

As much as I like Red Fortune, it isn't good or needed for SR. You'll want most of your toggles 4 slotted with LotG. It's better for SR - more recharge, better hit points and it saves slots.

The big question for SR builds tends to be Hasten or Aid Self. You only have one extra pool after Fighting and both of these are great.

I like to keep elude on my SR's..
I build for the soft cap.. And plan to have it.. But there's too many times where I step on an autohit quicksand and see my defense plummet or get nailed by one roman, then the next.. then next thing I know my defense is half of what it was.. Elude gives that extra leeway in the "emergency" situation.

An elude crash I can plan for.. cascading defense failure due to the random hit counter deciding I need to get hit 3 times in a row I can't..

You should be running 95% defense debuff resistance. You should be able to shrug off Romans and other debuffs just fine.

As Werner states, cascading defense failures are not a problem for SR anymore. Once upon a time, SR's DDR wasn't enhanced by the defense buffs slotted. This is no longer the case. 95% capped DDR laughs at defense debuffs.

It's been a while since I sat down with mid's and looked at /SR builds... I've done /SR before about as good as /SR can be done, so I've been focused on other stuff for a few years now.

But I have to confess, returning to /SR this morning for a bit in Mid's, I have to confess... /SR is still pretty friggin awsome.

My only problem with my SR is I just get one or two shotted just often enough to be really annoying. Last week it was a Arachnos boss with Assassin's Strike and a pair of Rikti bosses. Both times I went from full to face plant in less than a second.

Ok since I've had so much input so far about /sr is there anyone out there with a bs/sr build that I can use as a sample?? Budget really isn't a option for me as I can get money easy enough. Only thing I won't shell out for is the pvp io's. I'll be mainly soloing with the toon except for task forces for acolades and costume piece unlocks.

On the topic of the RNG deciding that it's had enough of you, it happens to me fairly often when running at +4. And that's with tough stacking on the passive scaling dam-res.

That resistance just gets leapfrogged. If I'm being slashed at by 3 +4 rikti chief soldiers, it's not at all unlikely that a drone will get a hit in right before 2 of the 3 bosses also get lucky.

And then it's time for a hospital trip.

SR excels at dealing with massive amounts of incoming attacks that don't deal massive damage in a single hit. That's when you can leverage the PSDR.

While I have defeated many an AV without aid self, if your plan is to often find yourself up against them, it may be a good idea to take it. I never will but that's only because I hate all its downsides.