New to Scrapping, looking for power set advice!
I'd probably say Broad Sword/Shield Defense. Mine was the most fun I've had so far 1-50, and I've played quite a few Scrappers. Broad Sword is a mostly single-target set, and with the damage buff from Against All Odds, puts out very respectable single-target damage. Parry will ease your leveling experience. Martial Arts/Super Reflexes seems good thematically, but will probably be more of a pain leveling up, at least through the early levels. Still, Martial Arts just got a boost, and I'm enjoying my Martial Arts/Fire.
"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
Broadsword is a toolbox, with defense, knockdown, knockup, AoE, good single-target damage and even defense debuffing -- but mostly Broadsword is a can-opener, and the can says "Whoopass" on the label.
I have always been very happy with my 50 MA/SR even before the changes to MA; and I have a 50 Spines/Dark who melts crowds. And I have several other mature Scrappers, including Claws/WP, Dark Melee, Elec/Shield and Dual Blades.
But like Werner, I've been happily surprised by BS/Shield. Backed up by Shields, the Broadsword hits like a truck -- other sets surpass it for sustained high-speed damage to AVs, but BS does very good burst damage and actually fulfills the promise of killing things fast enough to take the heat off your defenses. It just dismantles enemies.
And Parry is awesome for staying alive -- my guy is going to turn 39 next time he kills anything, and he's never died (I play him with a hardcore supergroup that deletes characters who suffer even a single defeat).
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
----------------------------------------------------------
The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
Here's a thought you might not have considered in terms of powersets.
Kinetic Melee could pretty easily be justified as a sort of exotic martial arts. In fact, the Tsoo have lieutenants who use Kinetic Melee under the name "Chi Master". I've been having crazy fun with my kinetic melee, and with Power Siphon providing one of the best self-damage-buffs available to scrappers, the set appears to actually be pretty strong. Also, KM's damage debuff should be useful in facing down hard targets.
I'd say KM/SR could easily do the "martial arts master" sort of thing, and ought to be pretty strong on the overall. It won't have the damage output of /shield, but the survivability is good, and since SR is so easy to softcap you can focus your set bonuses in other areas.
Beyond that, the sword sets are of course excellent. Both katana and broadsword provide you with an excellent damage mitigation tool on top of solid offense. Broadsword has the advantage of being usable with /shield, of course, but outside of that katana has a little better DPS.
Of course, the traditional "badass normal" is MA/SR, and with the recent buffs MA is a pretty good single target damage set in its own right...
Really, you can't go wrong here. Even DB, which is probably the weakest of your options here, is pretty darn good.
Myself, I'd probably go KM/SR, MA/SR, or as others have suggested, BS/SD. If you weren't trying to avoid /WP, though, I'd recommend katana/WP in a heartbeat as it has the potential to be devastating.
I'm sure you guys get this kind of question all of the time, so I apologize in advance.
I've just returned to the game for GR, and I'm looking to try my hand at building a Scrapper for the first time. My main is a SS/WP brute, and he's really good at taking down crowds of mooks, but I'd like to try my hand at something a little more specialized in taking down hard targets, like AVs and the like. Of course, being able to wade into a crowd and come out on top is a plus, but yeah.
Now, the roleplayer in me loves Batman-style Badass Normals, so I'd like to stick to something I can swing as a Natural origin human without too much of a stretch unless it's really unfeasible. For primaries, that's not really hard. The sword sets, Claws, DB and MA will all work. Secondaries is where it gets iffy. I'd like to avoid WP unless it's far and away the best for some reason, since I've done it once before, so that pretty much leaves BS or MA/SD and Whatever/SR. Maybe I can justify Regen as some awesome Shaolin-kung-fu-style business, too.
So, with those to work with, what's the best for what I'm trying to build for? I'm leaning towards BS/SD, with Parry to help my defense should I need it and the damage buff aura, though it won't be as strong against one guy I suppose. Plus, Shield Charge just seems fun. But SR seems like it would be easier to hit some softcaps from my basic understanding of how softcapping Defense works, which might be better. And for all I know, Broadsword might suck
Anyway, any advice would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.