Scrapper or Tank

Hello all,

I really enjoy farming in CoH and I have an SS - Fire Brute. I would like to make an Elec melee - Shield toon for blue side but I am not sure which way to go, scrapper or tank? Any ideas?

Thanks !

Do you want to do a lot of damage or be hard as hell to kill?

If you just intend to farm a bunch of stuff, scrapper is probably tough enough.

I'd say Scrapper, but I'm biased. *looks at stable of 16 Scrappers and 27 Brutes*

I don't really like Tankers, mainly because they have powersets reversed. You get powers that would normally be Secondary (like Shield Defense) as a Primary, and powers that would normally be Primary (like Electrical Melee) as a secondary.

It's the same reason I'm not fond of Defenders.

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Mmm...

The usual answer is depends :<)

Also what your definition of farming is, after all some folks may consider it illegal.

But since the devs have given us a difficulty slidder, with a four different options to set it upon. The question of Tanker versus Scrapper can get very interesting.

Today's Tanker, through the use of IOs, their damage can be very respectable. I contend my Elec/Shield Tank can out perform a Blaster in the DPS department when solo anyday, anytime. So trying to say Tankers can't "farm" because of low dps is simply a fasehood. (high aoe dps is not limited to em/shield tankers by any means, other sets such as fire, axe, and mace have excellent area DPS as well)

Today's Scrapper, through the use of IOs, are now very survivable alone in large groups. Thus they can decimate their opposition before they are themselves bested. Obviously the Scrapper's damage is superior to that of the Tanker and even more of a Blaster.

Very important, please note, I am talking in "solo" mode, not group.

So that brings us back to the choice of Tanker vs Scrapper, once more.

If you set your difficulty slider to +4/x8/Y/Y, you may find that the Scrapper is not consistently or reliably able to survive the damage by the mobs she ahd aggroed before demolishing them, it can get iffy. This as a whole not a problem for the Tanker. Thus you trade off some DPS (not that significantly) for sturdiness and the reliability to goes with it.

If you set your slider to +0/x8/Y/y, you will the Scrapper is tough enough to take on all comers, and dispatch them very expeditiously. So can the Tanker, but not as fast as the Scrapper.

So the real item to consider, is what is your prefered difficulty setting?

For shards, there is no appreciable benefit to get them to drop from a level 50 or 54, still same odds or just about. So given you are an incarnate, obviously, yu want to set the difficulty to +0 and go to town, mowing down baddies so fast, that you will be laughing histerically.

If you are trying to complete a purple set, there is a markable benefit for defeating higher leveled mobs; thus you want the +4, and as a result you want the Tanker, unless your Scrapper can take the heat. You may want to note, that shield melee types are hard to hit, but not too tough when taking damage when compared to other classes of melee builds.

Now there is a different school of thought and great argument with regards to having bosses or none in your harvesting enterprise. Bosses have greater percentage to give you a drop than a minion or LT, but takes longer to defeat. So the question arises: Is the time I take too defeat a boss more productive than the time had I defeated a handfull of minions?

My take, but that is my opinion, is that killing bosses are not worth the effort. Since I mainly PBAOE for the kill, in 2 attacks I can kill the 8 to 12 minions, and possibly the 4 lts too. It may easily take me 6 pulses to defeat the boss. That means in those 6 seconds, I could attacked 3 mob groups and defeated 8 x 3 = 24 minions, that is 1 boss or 24 minions. A boss chance to drop anything is about 8%, a LT is 4% and a minion is 2% as best I recall. Do you prefer a single 8% chance or 24 chances at 2% for minions plus 8 chances at 4% for LTs?

I hope this helps you some.

My definition of farming, or at least what I do, is I find a mission that I am comfortable with, that is I avoid tunnels ( my head always get stuck with pipes and roots), mobs are adequately spaced to ease aggroe management, and I have ample room to maneuver around and control the battle. Once I have that mission, I do most of it, reset it, and do it again. I normally set it to +0/x8/N/N since lately I am after shards, and do this when teaming for TFs are unavailable. I find farming very boring, and prefer to team if given a choice.

Stormy

Thanks! This was very helpful. I like +1/+8 so I will give the scrapper a try.

Thanks again