If you're looking for high ST orange numbers, it seems to me that Fire Armor would be your best bet. Fiery Embrace boosts base damage now, and BU + FE + Headsplitter is downright impressive.
As for primaries, Kinetic Melee can also be worth looking at. It doesn't get the one-click, hit-harder kind of deal BU is, but once it gets going with Power Siphon, Concentrated Strike hits higher than pretty much anything else a scrapper can do in one hit (save for crits).
From what I can tell in Mids, Fire Armor is lesser resistance set (Compared to elec/dark/invul) with the ability to do a ton more damage. While an extra +DMG power is great, the set (from looks) looks like it really wouldn't keep myself alive very long to do anything significant given the multi-mob nature of CoX. I had considered /Fire before, but just got turned off the set in Mids when I saw how far I could crank the def/res on the secondary. The input is greatly appreciated though! 
I don't consider it the king, but Broad Sword does great burst Damage. Broad Sword/Shield and Broad Sword/Fire even more so. I agree that Fire is squishy, though Broad Sword at least makes it less so. Sword and board is frickin' awesome, though. Most fun I've had 1-50.
"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
May i throw MA/SD in the mix? the new improvements have made MA almost unrivalled in ST burst damage...at least according to my work in mids:P
the build i worked up admittedly has a 20% global damage buff...but even still...with an unsaturated AAO and no Focus Chi cycle ive got Storm Kick producing 248.38 damage. It only goes up from there...
dont forget...these are Mids numbers...in game might vary
50's
Zoomazoom - Energy/Fire Blaster. Pyrul - Fire/Kin Controller. Vampir Lord - Kat/Regen Scrapper. Righteous Fox - SD/Mace Tanker. Strikeforce Oz - SD/SS Tanker. Paragons Green Beret - Arch/EM Blaster. Galaxium Omega - Invul/EM Tanker.
Yeah, I haven't done the hard analysis, but empirically speaking the recent MA buff was shot in the arm. I've been having a lot of fun with my MA scrapper again. He hits really hard now and crits a lot thanks to the small crit boost window on Eagles Claw.
I also have fun mixing punching and kicking animations on various costumes. I just wish there was a punch based animation for Dragon's Tail so I could do an all punchy line up.
Focus Chi plus Eagles Claw plus Crippling Axe Kick == a lot of damage.
The good thing about BS and Katana, is the ability to slot both of those -resistance IO's in your attack chain. That puts them close to Fiery Melee in terms of DPS with the advantages of team friendly -res.
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
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BS/Fire is a lot of fun, and tougher than you might first suppose thanks to the combo of Parry, resistances and a brilliant self-heal.|
Originally Posted by Gimix
From what I can tell in Mids, Fire Armor is lesser resistance set (Compared to elec/dark/invul) with the ability to do a ton more damage. While an extra +DMG power is great, the set (from looks) looks like it really wouldn't keep myself alive very long to do anything significant given the multi-mob nature of CoX. I had considered /Fire before, but just got turned off the set in Mids when I saw how far I could crank the def/res on the secondary. The input is greatly appreciated though!
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Psi attacks eat you alive though.
How exactly is working the new fire embrace ?
Espescially, does the buff still have a shorter duration for non fire based attack ?
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This. |
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
BS/Fire is a lot of fun, and tougher than you might first suppose thanks to the combo of Parry, resistances and a brilliant self-heal.
Psi attacks eat you alive though. |
Parry makes it pretty easy to softcap to melee attacks, leaving you free to pursue some Ranged/AoE defense. You probably won't be able to softcap like Dark Armor can, due to a lack of a native defense power, but if you can get Ranged/AoE up to about 30% you should find a significant increase in survivability.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Nope, it's 20 seconds across the board. Basically for that 20 seconds any orange number you make will have another orange number tagging along with him which is 45% of the first number. (actually this is a slight lie, Crits don't get a "Fire Crit" as well)|
Originally Posted by Nemeros
How exactly is working the new fire embrace ?
Espescially, does the buff still have a shorter duration for non fire based attack ? |
So it's like every attack you make gets an extra Fire damage component added to it which does 45% of that attacks "normal" damage (taking any and all Damage Buffs into account).
Head Splitter does 162 damage base. Slotted up (95% from 3 Damage SOs) lets call it 315. With FE active you'll do 315 + 142 Fire. With Build-Up also active you'll do 477 + 215 Fire. If that Crits (15% chance) you'll do 477 + 477 + 215 for 1170 damage in total.
This makes it brilliant for a Broadsword since you do sick orange numbers, especially if you also trigger Build-Up (it also makes it totally brilliant on a Brute since this extra fire damage component also gets the damage buff from Fury).
Overall I think Fire Armour suits Brutes more now for various reasons (and Shields suit Scrappers more), but of course Brutes can't get Broadsword and Parry is excellent coupled with FA.
You can also of course go with Katana which has better animation times than BS and thus has an edge over it. Smaller orange numbers but they come more quickly (I went Broadsword because no man in a kilt is going to be faffing around with a katana).
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When you add purple procs and -res procs to Katana and get the best attack chain it really becomes a beast. Can't pair it with SD though as you said.
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Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
You can also of course go with Katana which has better animation times than BS and thus has an edge over it. Smaller orange numbers but they come more quickly (I went Broadsword because no man in a kilt is going to be faffing around with a katana).
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Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
Quote:
Fire and Katana can do more burst damage than Broad Sword
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Originally Posted by Gimix
See title.
I'm trying to make a scrapper that puts up ludicrously high orange numbers and is ST-focused, attack chain be damned. I'm thinking that this has to be done as a BS/Shield or BS/Elec. The only problem is, I am god-awful at Mids. I've been hammering Mids at work for the past 7 hours or so, going from Mids newbie to.. Mids newbie in the process. My goals have been: 1) Max DamBuffs 2) Max Recharge 3) Max Defense/Resistances 4) No purples (Yet) But I simply cannot seem to keep track of what I'm doing, and end up just being overwhelmed at all of the things I'm trying to max or just look at the build unsatisfied and start over (and over, and over, and over..). Does anyone know of any helpful tidbits or IO sets specifically to look at? |
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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While I agree, Katana depends how you define burst damage. Broad Sword can put up a bigger orange number from a single attack, and that, to many people, apparently defines "burst". But to me, burst is more like how much DPS you can do in the first five or ten seconds of the fight or so. I believe Katana is ahead in that regard.|
Originally Posted by Santorican
Fire and Katana can do more burst damage than Broad Sword
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In a practical sense, the duration of burst that matters to you may also differ by build. On a Regen, for instance, I might burst damage in terms of how much you can kill before Moment of Glory drops. That's your initial burst, and you want to do a lot of damage during it, because you want a lot dead before that sucker drops.
"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
Quote:
BS/sd is awesome, you will like.|
Originally Posted by Gimix
See title.
I'm trying to make a scrapper that puts up ludicrously high orange numbers and is ST-focused, attack chain be damned. I'm thinking that this has to be done as a BS/Shield or BS/Elec. The only problem is, I am god-awful at Mids. I've been hammering Mids at work for the past 7 hours or so, going from Mids newbie to.. Mids newbie in the process. My goals have been: 1) Max DamBuffs 2) Max Recharge 3) Max Defense/Resistances 4) No purples (Yet) But I simply cannot seem to keep track of what I'm doing, and end up just being overwhelmed at all of the things I'm trying to max or just look at the build unsatisfied and start over (and over, and over, and over..). Does anyone know of any helpful tidbits or IO sets specifically to look at? |
Note, however, that Martial Arts is scary now. Eagle Claw, Crippling Axe Kick, and Cobra Strike all hit like you're throwing anvils.
MA/sd is a monster. Prolly not as good as BS/sd, but very fine indeed. MA/elec is a monster. MA/fire is....well, you get the point.
I'll give more insight as to what I was trying to do.
I am looking for a primary that allows me to put up fat, "wow-what did you just do, you broke it" orange numbers, and do then repeat them as fast as possible. An attack chain isn't really what I am going for. Think less "chain" and more "Whenever that power comes back up, everyone's going to know/see it." Right now I'm leaning on /Fire, as the overall damage output offered is the highest that I can see/toy with in Mids. (I'm not exactly thrilled about the cuts in survivability, but that's the sacrifice you gotta make I'm guessing). Once I can find a way to max my +damage, I'll start looking at ways to improve the global recharge. As I'm leaning on /Fire, I'll make my defense my overloaded offense and pray I can do enough before I drop dead.
So you want something to show off in a group and have them say how good your dmg is? Make a ss brute get rage, pop a few reds and watch the dmg from knockout blow hit for 1k+. Other than that just make a good IO build with any scrapper set and kill. I run my ele/sd and when I saturate AAO and pop a red or have a few buffs the dmg can be in the 600-700's on the aoe LR etc. It seems every team I am on is running some shield toons now days though and I figure the less people are oo'g and aw'g the more they are helping the team kill faster!
I have to agree people will go wow when you can wipe an entire spawn out so go for AoE damage from Fire,Electric/Shield if you're looking to impress.
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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You're a very smart guy Werner, and obviously an amazing scrapper.|
Originally Posted by Werner
While I agree, Katana depends how you define burst damage. Broad Sword can put up a bigger orange number from a single attack, and that, to many people, apparently defines "burst". But to me, burst is more like how much DPS you can do in the first five or ten seconds of the fight or so. I believe Katana is ahead in that regard.
In a practical sense, the duration of burst that matters to you may also differ by build. On a Regen, for instance, I might burst damage in terms of how much you can kill before Moment of Glory drops. That's your initial burst, and you want to do a lot of damage during it, because you want a lot dead before that sucker drops. |
But burst damage has meant bigger orange numbers since day 1 of this game.
A primary reason for this is that you can't get off a 5-10 second attack chain in PvP.
Burst damage is big primary attack and maybe a secondary attack if your first attack was done in stealth.
Then possibly a follow up attack several seconds later if you can catch them in time.
It's not a single run through of your attack chain. That's DPS.
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Those definitions have been fought over since they were invented, like most definitions.
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Originally Posted by DWish
But burst damage has meant bigger orange numbers since day 1 of this game.
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That's been my understanding, that the definition has always been debated, though I wasn't on the forum for the first few years. To me, PvP is just another situation where burst takes on a more specific meaning. I'm also not sure how burst damage has meant big orange numbers since day 1, and that a primary reason for this is PvP, since that wasn't in the game on day 1, but that's probably just me concatenating two sentences in my mind in a way that wasn't intended. But PvP has always been a small portion of the player base, and probably an even smaller portion of the Scrapper player base due to LOLmelee. When Scrappers ask about burst, they're rarely asking about PvP.|
Originally Posted by brophog02
Those definitions have been fought over since they were invented, like most definitions.
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In the PvE game, huge orange numbers are mostly for impressing yourself and other people. They're not particularly useful. Generally speaking, I'd rather have more attacks doing less damage so that I waste less damage on blow through.
I don't consider a single run through an attack chain to be DPS. To me, DPS is SUSTAINED single target damage. Five to ten seconds isn't sustained. And chances are excellent that the first run through your chain is NOT going to be very close to your sustained single target damage. Many combos have a build up power, so they'll be doing a lot more damage on the first run through. Many have a follow up power, so they'll be doing a lot less damage on the first run through. Certainly Brutes, with Fury, have to build up to their DPS.
In the end, it's just semantics, as long as people are clear about what they mean. Unfortunately, most people aren't very clear about what they mean, and so these debates continue.
Fortunately for us, Gimix clarified. HUGE orange numbers. Numbers that make people sit up and take notice. That's not Katana.
I'd say Fire/Fire might be just what the doctor ordered, at least if you can survive it. Just think of it as a high hit point Blapper with mez protection, and you should be fine.
"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
Quote:
Yep.
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Originally Posted by Werner
In the end, it's just semantics, as long as people are clear about what they mean.
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If you want huge single target damage in a burst then I'd suggest playing a Stalker.
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Originally Posted by DWish
You're a very smart guy Werner, and obviously an amazing scrapper.
But burst damage has meant bigger orange numbers since day 1 of this game. A primary reason for this is that you can't get off a 5-10 second attack chain in PvP. Burst damage is big primary attack and maybe a secondary attack if your first attack was done in stealth. Then possibly a follow up attack several seconds later if you can catch them in time. It's not a single run through of your attack chain. That's DPS. |
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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What? Cobra Strike does serious damage now? I hate it when I miss important updates!
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Originally Posted by mauk2
BS/sd is awesome, you will like.
Note, however, that Martial Arts is scary now. Eagle Claw, Crippling Axe Kick, and Cobra Strike all hit like you're throwing anvils. MA/sd is a monster. Prolly not as good as BS/sd, but very fine indeed. MA/elec is a monster. MA/fire is....well, you get the point. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Quote:
...er, yes.|
Originally Posted by Tenzhi
What? Cobra Strike does serious damage now? I hate it when I miss important updates!
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Cobra Strike had its stun chance reduced from 100 percent to 75 percent, and had it's damage increased roughly 1000 percent.(Yes, seriously.)
It now hits just about as hard as CAK, and CAK hits like a bomb going off.
In addition, Eagle Claw now adds 33 percent to the crit chance of the attack which directly follows it (within .25 seconds, if I recall correctly.)
Dragon Tail seems rather vanilla for a PBAOE until you note that it animates WAY faster than any other PBAOE, and can accept the force feedback chance for +recharge proc.
Martial Arts rocks like Bruce Lee now, especially with the wide array of alternate animations, and more importantly, the huge amount of 'in-betweener' animations. It is a pleasure to watch.
So, yes, these days, MA is giving BS a serious run for the 'big orange numbers' competition.
See title.
I'm trying to make a scrapper that puts up ludicrously high orange numbers and is ST-focused, attack chain be damned. I'm thinking that this has to be done as a BS/Shield or BS/Elec. The only problem is, I am god-awful at Mids. I've been hammering Mids at work for the past 7 hours or so, going from Mids newbie to.. Mids newbie in the process. My goals have been:
1) Max DamBuffs
2) Max Recharge
3) Max Defense/Resistances
4) No purples (Yet)
But I simply cannot seem to keep track of what I'm doing, and end up just being overwhelmed at all of the things I'm trying to max or just look at the build unsatisfied and start over (and over, and over, and over..). Does anyone know of any helpful tidbits or IO sets specifically to look at?