What pairs well with Claws or Spines?

I am in the process of making my first scrapper and was wondering what it should be. I think I've nailed the Primary power set to either:

• Spines
• Claws

• Good AoE
• Good Single Target
• Good Defenses/Resistance
• All around fun build
• BE A COMPLETE BEAST!

First of all, I'd recommend Claws over Spines for an all around character. With that in mind, I'm gonna put my two cents in for Super Reflexes. I'm currently 47 on mine, and it's easily in my top 3 favorite characters of all time. Easy to softcap, lots of damage, fast moving, and all around fun!

Claws is great AoE. Spin is shockingly damaging, and is the fastest recharging PBAoE around. Eviscerate and Shockwave just make it sweeter.
Claws puts out solid single target DPS at high levels of recharge, and at low levels, its natural speed puts it near the top compared to other low-recharge chains.
Some people worry about SR's survivability, especially in the new content, but I've only died a handful of times in my run, and I've been at x8 since about level 30 (starting at -1, now at +2, could probably bump higher)
This build is quite literally "BEAST" like, if you know what I mean. Good single target, good AoE, nice mitigation. A simple character, but endlessly entertaining. And if you go this route, there's a good support system out there. I believe BillZBubba is the claws guru, and I've played this game for years, so if you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

Good luck!

(P.S. If you would prefer a second option, Claws/Elec is also pretty sweet, Follow-Up+Damage Aura+Spin FTW!!!)

Haha nice! Have fun, and like I said, if you have questions, or want build help or anything, shoot me a PM

Claws/SR is okay.

But the real beastly combo, in my opinion, is claws/invuln.

Invuln is tougher than SR. You can get near-equal defense numbers with much higher hitpoints and resists. Granted you have much less DDR.

SR is faster, but claws is fast to begin with.

And Invulnerability has a taunt aura. After the 9,853rd time the mob scatters from you right before you kill them, you will want a taunt aura.

That's definitely true, Mauk. SR isn't as tough as /Invuln. But I think SR manages to be ridiculously tough for ridiculously cheap. Also, the little slotting to max out SRs survivability means more space to slot to be an offensive powerhouse. Also, unless you're planning on farming from 1-50 in an afternoon, I feel like SR is more fun to level.

If you have Going Rogue its even better, as you can get yourself 5 Luck of the Gamblers very easily, which combined with quickness and claws' natural speed gets you a pretty solid dps chain.

One advantage Claws/sr has over Claws/invul is that Claws/sr doesn't really care how you use Shockwave.

Claws/sd. I wish.

I've had a claws/sr for about 5 years now. She is very zoomie and has good DPS but very poor burst damage. She's a little fragile, compared to other scrappers I've played, but nothing too serious, especially after a nice, solid IO build a while back. Claws is (or was) the fastest recharging scrapper set, and the boost from SR's quickness is a nice compliment.

I also have a spines/dark who is just a freaking machine. It's a pretty end heavy build, but alpha slotting should help with that. I forget the exact number right now, but my spines/dark build has more than 5 procs slotted in auras. She kills things while i'm afk, and when I'm actually around she's like a lawnmower.

I've heard good things about spines/fire, too, but never played it past about 35. FA has a damage aura that could take a proc, but DA has many more.

good luck.

i love my claws/sr but once i lvled a fire/sr no contest between the sets.

stabby vs melty? whose gonna win...you decide

Yeah, but then I see all the Fire/Shields with their SC and AaO and I get envious.

Claws is one of the only sets without Shield guilt.