Sharp Pointy Things

...Specifically, Claws and Spines. The two powersets are siblings much like Broad Sword and Katana. I've leveled both on Fiery Aura Scrappers and have learned much. Despite the similarities, the sets are worlds apart and really show the strengths of opposing styles of gameplay.

In general, Claws is much quicker, with lower activation times and recharges than Spines. This is attractive when stringing together attack chains, because casting all the powers repeatedly in rapid succession makes for a beautiful display of constant damage output. In contrast, Spines is slower, but higher damage per attack, with enemy speed and recharge debuffs, and a dose of Toxic damage-over-time to boot. It's heavier-hitting as far as orange numbers are concerned, but it is not rapid enough to spew out a constant stream of damage like Claws does.

Let's take a quick look at the pros and cons of both powersets on a per-power basis...



Swipe - Barb Swipe

Swipe is a very quick attack. With an activation time of 0.83s and a recharge time of 1.70s, it's one of the fastest attacks in the game; faster even than Brawl. You cast it, do a decent chunk of damage, and move onto the next attack. It's about as elegant as they come when dealing some damage on the spot.

Barb Swipe is insanely slower with a 2.43s activation time, but deals more damage by a fair amount (by about 18%). This clearly makes Swipe the winner between these two powers, but that's taken out of context. Barb Swipe is the quickest attack in the Spines powerset, which means things get really hefty really quickly.



Strike - Lunge

Strike is another quick attack like Swipe. Used together, these two powers constitute a pretty good set all by themselves in the lower levels. You're never standing around waiting for them to recharge, and their damage is admirable for their levels. Later on, the two powers are constantly recharged and ready to go, making for not one but two little filler powers when you need to hurt something.

Lunge casts faster than Barb Swipe and does more damage. Did that make sense? It does have a much longer recharge, though (4s compared to Barb Swipe's 1.5s), to offset its awesome. I've found it to be the sort of functional staple power of Spines. Lunge and Strike are peers for the most part; each edging out over the other in terms of big numbers versus fast numbers.



Slash

Spines has no analog to Slash. It's a whole 'nother attack, dealing slightly more damage than Strike, but inflicting a decent -7.5% Defense debuff on the target. Of the five powers mentioned so far, this one has the lowest DPS by a narrow margin below Lunge. It does, however, make landing subsequent hits a lot easier, especially at the lower levels. And hey, it's another attack. How can you go wrong?



Spin - Spine Burst

The usual PBAoE attacks for melee sets, these powers are great for dispatching crowds. Spin does about 40% more damage than Spine Burst, which is substantial. It also costs less endurance by about 40%. It also recharges--guess what--about 40% faster.

The discrepancy here is something that can be argued to give Spine Burst more than a 40% advantage, and that's its 15 foot range compared to Spin's 8. In situations with a high concentration of enemies (such as scrapping through an aggro cap), Spine Burst will deal more total damage by merit of collision detection of all things.



Follow Up - Build Up

There's some major differences here. Spines gets the same traditional Build Up many other sets get: +20% ToHit and +100% Damage for 10s with a 90s recharge. This suits Spines just fine given its longer-casting, harder-hitting attacks.

Follow Up, on the other hand, is a spectacle of a self buff. It's +10% ToHit and +37.5% Damage for 10s, which makes it seem inferior to Build Up, but there's a catch... Instead of a one-off click power, it's an attack in and of itself with a 12s recharge. It does a little more damage than Swipe, even, and the benefits of the power can be reapplied constantly.

With recharge, Build Up still has 35 seconds of downtime, but Follow Up will stack with itself for 4 seconds at a time. Mixed with Slash, Follow Up almost matches Build Up in terms of improved hit chance.



Confront

Not too noteworthy. They're just listed here for reference.



Focus - Impale

Here's where things get interesting. Both of these are ranged attacks (40 feet) with decent damage--nearly identical over time. They also both apply a status effect to screw with the enemy. For melee sets, these powers are distinctive.

Focus deals less damage per cast but recharges faster. It applies a flat-rate knockdown to the target, which can serve as meaningful mitigation for incoming damage. This isn't just a chance for knockdown either; unless the enemy resists it, they're gonna topple over. Even in melee range, you can keep that nasty boss on his back much of time time while you wail on him.

Impale, on the other hand, is an immobilize (as well as a decent attack in its own right), which is especially helpful for when things inevitably try to flee.



Quills

Claws has no analog to Quills. It's a run-of-the-mill damage aura toggle power like the kind you find in defensive sets. It keeps its -Speed -Recharge debuffs too.

Unlike defensive auras, Quills does much lower damage, but has a chance to land a Critical Hit.

Despite the implications from the icon, Quills does not deal "extreme" damage. The overlay used was presumably chosen to differentiate it from the icon for Spine Burst.



Eviscerate - Ripper

These powers are delicious. They're very similar: double back flip, fast-recharging, high-damage (a good 140 per target each at level 50), 90-degree cone attacks that are pretty easy to set up for deadly group strikes.

Ripper's a hodgepodge of Lethal damage with Toxic DoT, -Speed -Recharge, and 60% chance for knockdown.

Eviscerate only gets one tick of Lethal damage to its fame, but it has a fixed 15% chance to land a Critical Hit, which is much better than average for Scrapper attacks.



Shockwave - Throw Spines

Further displacing themselves from the world of melee sets, Claws and Spines feature some sweet ranged cone attacks. Both are very large with a 90-degree spread angle, and have 30-foot range.

Shockwave slams enemies with 1.45 magnitude knockback, which will toss everything on its side. This is knockback and not knockdown, which might be an issue depending on your defensive and epic powersets. If nothing else, you could always jump up and cast it straight down to keep enemies from scattering too badly. Shockwave does about the same damage as Strike.

Throw Spines is an exotic attack with the usual -Speed -Recharge and Toxic DoT. It's fairly fast-casting for a Spines attack, and certainly isn't anything to shake a stick at. It deals somewhat more damage than Lunge and recharges about as fast as Ripper. Whereas Shockwave's knockback may render it impractical in some cases, Throw Spines is a suitable entry in ordinary attack sequences.
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All-in-all, the two sets are similar enough to be considered peers of each other, but are different enough to suit two totally opposing play styles. Spines may turn people away with its lower "damage per activation second" and visual effects (they don't call it Banana Melee for nothing), but as a set you don't see a lot of, I do recommend giving it a try.

For me, personally, having tried both with Fiery Aura, I'm gonna have to give my vote to Spines. Build Up + Spine Burst + Burn (with a side order of Quills and Blazing Aura) is much more attractive to me than Follow Up + Spin + Burn.

An interesting comparison. Considering I like Katana over BS because the lower recharge, animation times, and endurance its suprising that I have always favored spines over claws.

In regards to spine burst, and spines in general, if you are not at aggro cap, you are not utilizing spines properly. In the old days, I would rather hunt large spawns of -1's or -2's in perez than spawns with 3 to 6 +1's, 2's regular zones.

It might bear mentioning that Spin is a fantastic attack, particularly for Scrappers. It's the second-highest-damage Scrapper PBAoE after Fire Sword Circle, but it recharges more than twice as fast (9.2 seconds vs 20 seconds) and casts slightly faster as well. Over time, it does substantially better damage (probably even if you factor in lethal vs. fire resistances over all types of enemies), making it one of the premier attacks in the game, really.

Recharge makes it even more impressive -- my current Claws Scrapper gets Spin back in 3.79 seconds without using Hasten -- and without Quickness or Lightning Reflexes or Incarnate abilities. The second-hardest-hitting PBAoE from a damage-dealing AT every 4 seconds or so!

While I have yet to really play with Claws, Impale from Spines is one of my favorite Scrapper powers. Having a ranged power that will immobilize (if it doesn't kill) runners is nice, and pulling fliers down out of the air is highly satisfiying for me.

"Try to get away from me will you?!" *Shlunk*

That being said I'd love a choice on the animation for it, the fast ball pitch doesn't really work for my picture of shooting spines. The animation from the Widow's Poison Dart would be my personal pick.

Pointed sticks?

When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after YOU with a bunch of loganberries, don't come cryin' to me!

I can't say I've ever looked at Spines as being so similar to Claws. I've recently been trying to find my next melee project after a Claws/SR Scrapper and Kinetic Melee seemed to come at the right time - similar enough to Claws for me to be comfortable with the set but with a different damage type and arguably more useful secondary effect. Paired it off with Ice on a Tanker, Regen on a Scrapper, EA on a Brute and Nin on a Stalker - perhaps I need to re-think my appraoch with Spines in mind

One can never have enough alts...