The Good:
Fire armor offers resistance and healing. Katana offers defense and knockup. That's a lot of variety to stop incoming damage. Even if an enemy can nullify one type of mitigation (such as tohit buffs to beat your defense, or disruption attacks to nullify resistance), you'll still have others to fall back on.
Endurance shouldn't be much of an issue. Katana isn't especially endurance-heavy, and you'll have Consume to fall back on.
The Bad:
Healing Flames and Consume cause redraw in Katana. Divine Avalanche can miss, which is a large part of your defense.
Strategy:
Spam Divine Avalanche to keep your defense high. Use it every time it is recharged. Fire armor can be a bit squishy at times, so the extra defense is really helpful.
Against minions, use Flashing Steel, Lotus Drop, and Blazing Aura to wipe the floor with them. Golden Dragonfly also has a small cone that can absolutely wreck multiple minions at a time, but it takes some practice to use this way.
Against bosses and other tough opponents, use Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly to juggle them. The more time they spend getting up, the less time they have to attack you.
The Bacon Compels You.
My mid-20s Broadsword/Fire Armour scrapper is a blast to play (BS is basically Katana with slower but heavier attacks).
I've stuck Parry (Divine Avalanche basically) on auto and it's my alternating attack. Slotted for accuracy, defense buff and damage it's a great filler attack which can quickly make melee a non-threat (Noble Savage was dogmeat to this character).
With the changes to Stamina coming in i19 it would be tempting to wait until then to roll your new character, it'll mean you can fit Blazing Aura in sooner and not have as many End woes.
Or you can do what I did and craft the Recovery Serum temp power a lot and use it whenever you start running low on End. Makes a massive difference before you get Stamina and SOs. I ignored Fitness until level 22 and then switched to the second build with it, enabling me to also slot SOs (basically a free respec without needing to burn one).
I think a Kat/Fire/Soul build with an emphasis on recharge, +def(just enough to softcap with shadowmeld), and +hp would be pretty beastly in the late game.
Well I think all /fire/soul builds following that scheme would be significantly more survivable now that soul mastery is available.
That sounds really good, Nemu. I've a kat/fire stuck in the 40s who would make a great villain. Would be easier with the fitness pool changes coming in I19, too. Gonna load up mids and play with that right now.
50s:
Grimmloch, Tactically Delicious, Ugly Frankie, Operative Tracker, CryoFurnace, Professional Help, Silver Sphinx, Aries Knight, Tachyon Aegis, Jade Sphinx
Currently building:
Any one of half a dozen alts!
Thanks everyone for the very informative views on Katana/Fire. I hadn't taken the Villain epic pools into consideration but yeah, there is some nice stuff there to look at.
I was wondering if anyone had made a Scrapper with the Sets of Katana / Fire , and how you liked it, I have not played Katana or Fire Armor so was thinking of taking the opportunity to play these sets in a combo. What do you guys think of this Combination of Powers?