Looking for a solo survivable scrapper...

But I can't seem to decided on what type to be. I haven't played a scrapper since I4 or so. Its been a VERY long time and I just feel the urge to go back, but I'd rather not build a lemon. I've read quite a few posts here but I'm still not quite sure what would be the most survivable solo scrapper. If I could get some advice I would really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

There are no lemon scrappers.

The most survivable scrapper depends on the enemies you plan on fighting.

When it comes to slotting with nothing but SOs, all of the scrapper combos are pretty dang well balanced across the board.

So... all things being equal: dark melee/invulnerable IOed to the gills.

Edited for brainfart.

As Bill said, there really are no lemons in the world of scrappers. Some are better against certain enemies than others, but they're all pretty nicely balanced out of the box.

After that, it's all a matter of special effects, personal preferences, and what you'd like to do with your scrapper: single target carnage, AoE mayhem, or a combination of the two. That will generally determine your scrapper primary, but some secondaries compliment certain primaries particularly well -- AoE scrappers would benefit from a taunt aura like the ones Invincibility, Shield Defense or Willpower provide, for instance.

What exactly do you plan on doing with your scrapper when soloing, and/or do you see ANY teaming in that character's future at all? Small groups, big groups, some of each?

I'm a big fan of Claws/Wp. Pretty much easy mode 1-50.

But as folks have said, nearly all combinations of scrappers work great.

While I like my Claws/WP, I'm always ambivalent about using Shockwave and knocking enemies back out of Rise to the Challenge's 8' radius.

I stop taking damage for a few seconds while they get up and charge back, but I'm not getting as much of a regen bonus from RttC during that time.

If I just knock the bad guys down with my DB's Sweep, or knock them up and down with my Katana or Broadsword's "heavy hitters" I stop taking incoming damage AND I get to keep the higher regen bonus, and I'm suspecting that Dragon's Tail's knockdown will work the same way when I take it with my MA/WP.

I agree that it was "easy mode" from 1-50, but now IO'd at 50 I can't achieve the same level of "wow, did you see THAT?!" that I can with some of my other toons -- then again, part of that might be because I don't quite play the Claws/WP as much. It's a personal preference, but I think Claws might synergize better with other secondaries. <shrug>

Willpower is a good set for beginners. You don't have to worry about endurance dropping due to toggles, it has plenty of regeneration, and it comes with some resistance and defense. It works well without high-end IO sets. However, it doesn't have as much potential as other sets given an unlimited Inf to invest in it.

Most of the other sets don't feel as tough as they should be until you start adding defense through IO set bonuses. None of the other sets include defense, resistance, regeneration, and endurance recovery. That's why Willpower is attractive for players who don't want to invest a lot of time or Inf. It has a little bit of everything to give you the best chance to survive in most situations.

If you want to use a different set, ask for advice on exactly what you are looking for.

Katana or Broadsword with willpower is extremely resilient without a lot of money spent on IOs.

DM/SD is also a beast. The -acc from its attacks meshes well with the +def from the secondary, at 35 Shield Charge beefs up AOE (Soul Drain + SC + maxed out AAO = happy fun times), and DM gives SD a heal, which it is sorely in need of.

For primaries, I like Dark for its to-hit debuffs, Dual Blades for knockdown mitigation, and Elec for mitigation through AOE damage (kill faster and you take less damage). Dark is better for solo opponents, Elec and DB are better in crowds.

Secondary, as mentioned above, depends on what you plan on facing and how much you want to spend. Elec and Fire are probably the weakest for survivability. Regen is great in PVP, not so good in PVE, but with enough global recharge (read: "billions of inf"), it can be excellent all around. Defense-heavy sets are probably the best bet, just because they are easy to softcap and not being hit trumps being able to take a hit.

For a sneaky good secondary, look at Dark. Dark isn't defense-heavy, but it has great mitigation and a very nice self-heal. It also has a little extra defense that you can build on with IOs.

Roll a dice or use a random number generator to choose the sets. You can't go wrong.

Well, someone wrote a response about recharge levels, and I missed who, and now it's gone, or maybe I'm just crazy. But I prepared a response, and it might be informative, so I might as well post it. It will also illustrate some differences, and how they don't add up to much of a difference.

I mostly care about top end L50 builds, so I could be off for lower recharge levels and earlier attack chains. I DO have an attack chain library, so let's at least see what we have for what I consider the good end game attack chains of both sets. Mids' average damage, no enhancements, Aracanatime taken into account.

Rech  DPS Parries Primary Chain
250%  75  0       Katana  GD>GC>SD>GC
293%  72  0       BS      HS>Hack>Disembowel
305%  72  0       BS      HS>Hack>Disembowel>Hack
163%  67  1       Katana  DA>GC>SD>GC>GD>GC>SD>GC
103%  66  1       Katana  DA>GC>GD>GC>SD>GC
219%  66  1       BS      Parry>Hack>HS>Hack>Disembowel
 90%  61  2       Katana  DA>GC>GD>GC>DA>GC>SD>GC
108%  60  2       BS      Parry>HS>Parry>Disembowel>Hack

So if I'm understanding this, everyone is saying that primary is up to me, everything rocks, but WP seems to be the most newbie (survivable) secondary?

Kinda thinking about a MA or Katana. Does one of these do significantly more damage than the other?

Well, it USED to be Katana, though pretty much just because of how it could take advantage of procs. Then they buffed Martial Arts, and in particular Eagle's Claw got interesting. Now I'm not certain which would be better because I haven't poked into what the new set can do.

I'm guessing that neither does significantly more than the other at this point. Katana would probably be more survivable while leveling due to Divine Avalanche. But I'm doing OK with Martial Arts/Fire, and Martial Arts/Willpower should be significantly more survivable than that. It'd be fine if that's your preference.

I don't find that the sets work almost exactly the same. For example, build up. Yes, all sets have some version of it, but it comes in different flavors that play differently. There's your traditional build up, which is a click power that gives you 10 seconds of awesome. There's a follow up type build up, which is an attack that you use in your attack string that buffs subsequent attacks for 10 seconds. And there's Dark Melee's Soul Drain, which is a PBAoE attack that does a little damage and buffs your attacks for every target hit for the next 30 seconds.

I don't think the main thing of interest about Katana and Broad Sword are the defense debuffs, but rather the defense buffs in the form of Divine Avalanche and Parry. They're HUGE, at least on a low to medium defense secondary, and still good on a high defense secondary to help with leveling up.

I wasn't aware that Dual Blades is generally regarded as less capable of doing single target damage than other sets. I guess people need to be made aware that it's actually QUITE capable of single target DPS. The only drawback in that regard is that you can't combine it with Shield Defense, so you're never going to see it as king of the Pylon soloing charts. That said, a Dual Blades/Electric was smack dab in the middle of the cluster of Shield Builds at the top, and far above any other non-Shield build. I wouldn't rate its AoE as superior to Spines, though. I'd put it down around Claws. That's not bad, but not top of the heap either, and again, you can't combine it with Shield Defense for additional damage and additional AoE.

But it's also true that unless you know what you're after, you might as well pick whatever sounds like fun. They're ALL good. There are no clear winners and losers among the primaries and secondaries. They just have different strengths and weaknesses.

MA vs. Kat.

For a new player Crane Kick's KB might be annoying to deal with. Hell, I'm a 5 year vet and it bugs the hell out of me. It feels like it should be part of an attack chain, but it tends not to be since you just knocked your target away. Yes, there are ways to deal with KB, but it's still annoying and likely even more so for a new player. Kat is basically attack and toss in DA as needed. Since Crane Kick can be gotten at level 8, it's quick to get a character to that level and see what it's like to decide if you want to stay with it, or not.

I certainly don't wanna get into the BS vs Kat debate either, but I should point out that Kat also has superior AoE offense to BS. Won't make a difference soloing Pylons, but I think the "casual" gamer would get more out of Kat, just running missions and stuff.

Of all the scrappers I play (and I play just about all the powersets, though not in every combination), I find my DB/WP the "easiest", and frankly darn effective. He's IO'ed out to have softcapped S/L def, but before doing that, he was still plenty easy mode.

The combos are a bit tricky to get into, but once you basically settle into your top combo (Attack Vitals), you don't have to worry about any of the rest (which is to say you can, and maybe should to squeeze out even more performance, but you can get by plenty fine w/just the BF+AV combo). WP, of course, is the definition of easy mode; adding IO bonuses for survivability is just gravy.

Would a Kat(BS)/WP be more survivable, esp at lower lvls? Sure, but I find w/Kat, you have to pay attention to how many DA's to stack for minimal/necessary/optimal performance, plus you don't get your top chain til 32, vs 26 for DB's AV combo.

I got scrappers that kill faster (both ST & AoE) and survive better at the top end, but if I just wanna blow through some missions w/o thinking too much about it (like say farming TIPs missions), I usually grab my DB/WP.

All I gots iz style!

What amuses me about all the Stupid Scrapper Tricks is pondering all the number crunching and build and tactics sharing that occurred over the years to make it all happen.

We've all spent a lot of time helping each other get better at flipping out and killing things and I thank yall for it.