Potential

With an unlimited amount of resources which scrapper pairing would you pick and why?

That highly depends on the goals of your build. Think of the craziest things you want to do with your scrapper, and coming up with a fitting combination will be easier.


For example, I wanted a single target DPS juggernaut that doesn't rely on having multiple enemies around, so I picked Kinetic Melee/Fiery Aura.

Another person wanted a balanced scrapper with good damage contribution and survivability, so he went for Broad Sword/Shield Defense. He then decided he wanted a Scrapper that just doesn't die, so he picked Dark Melee/Invulnerability.

Something /electric, /dark, or /fire. Resist sets with good heals can stack IO defense for probably the best all-around survivability. Of these I like /electric because its built in recharge bonus and complete endurance sustainability give you a lot more options for the rest of your build and IO's.

For primary I'd go km, fire, kat, or db for high single target damage potential, and then probably narrow down to fire or db for better aoe damage potential.

DM/SD is the popular pick for this, I think, but having one at 50, I don't much like it. It feels like the big bonus of the pairing, AAo, also limits my options a bunch.

Potential for what? AoE Damage? ST Damage? Survivability? Something else?

I picked Katana/Dark for survivability. With an unlimited budget, you can soft cap your defense, have high resistances, and a quickly-recharging full heal. On top of that, you get a lot of goodies like a damage aura, fear aura, stealth (add a stealth IO for invisibility), and endurance drain resistance. All done with functional travel power and the main AoE attack.

Other builds will do a lot more damage. Dark Melee/Invulnerability WILL beat it for survivability in many or perhaps most situations. So it's not just a numbers thing. But there's just something about it...

I'm not really sure what benefits the most from incarnates, but my Katana/Dark is benefitting a lot. Cardiac handles my massive endurance needs (12 toggles, many things slotted with little emphasis on endurance reduction). Barrier is particularly useful to me because I have a lot of high resistances, but nothing capped, so it's a very significant survivability boost.

NVM, found it

I'm so used to playing Tankers that I'd want a tanker-lite type of Scrapper. I think that Spines/Invulnerability/Leviathan Mastery would fit the bill.

- Holds aggro well. (taunt aura + damage aura)
- Good survivability. (layered protection + capped hp)
- Decent AoE damage.

For secondaries, I agree that I'd want a Resist-based set. Soft-capped melee and ranged defense, with the right amount of inf, can be added with IOs. You can't really do that with resists (at least, not covering the same amount of attacks that +defense does). Since we're not worried about defenses beyond this, I would want a secondary that adds damage to the build. This leaves us with Fire, Electric, and Dark Armour. TBH, all three are great at their own things:

Fire - Adds a lot of extra damage through Fiery Embrace and Burn.

Electric - Doesn't need a Cardiac Alpha thanks to Energize and Power Sink. Between Lightning Reflexes and Spiritual, it can add a gigantic amount of recharge to a build. Could take a Musculature if the recharge isn't needed in the primary.

Dark - PSIONIC RESISTANCE. After running with my Spines/Elec for a while now, I am really starting to hate carnies, arachnos, and just about anything that does psionic damage. Dark is the only set of the three that offers full resistances. Extra mitigation is added through the later powers in the set.

Primary really depends on what your preference is. Are you trying to solo a pylon in record time? Single target. Groups and soloing? AoE. Why AoE for soloing? Because this'll let you ramp up the difficulty to a level that really tests your defenses.

For single target, go with whatever's been number crunched out to being the best. Is it katana?

For AoE... Out of all of the sets, I'd go with Spines. Why spines? Throw Spines is the most loving cone you will ever use. With most targeted AoEs, you have to do some finagling to get a pack of mobs to hit everyone with it. Throw Spines? You can welcome everyone into your AoE's sweet embrace easily from the start. With a high-level build, you can get it down to a 3.2s cooldown, too. Did I mention it has a 1.63s activation time? JAWESOME. Spines also has a second damage aura -and- it can slot three Obliterion sets which are made of jelly and win. The single target damage in the set isn't too shabby either once you get to the higher levels of recharge with IOs.

Or you could go with the best of both worlds and get a high-performance ST damage with decent AoE with a set like Dual Blades.

With all of this said, I've been playing the crap out of my Spines/Electric recently. Just got the Spiritual alpha into her and she's become a whirlwind of AoE destruction. With softcap melee defense (with one purple) and Shadow Meld to softcap melee/ranged so I can take alphas for teams (since I'm floating in so much +recharge and AoE that I don't need EPP attacks), it's been a blast playing her.

I'd suggest fire melee/shield defense. With fire melee, you will do great single target and aoe damage, and the damage type is less resisted than most. Shield defense gives you great defense and a crashless tier nine for added survivability, and a great offensive boost with aao and shield charge. The one hole this build had, health recovery, can be covered by destiny heal/regen boost incarnate ability. Add some reactive and judgement power of your choice, and you've got a wrecking ball of scrappery goodness.

Scrappers are more about killing stuff than surviving imo, hence my choice. If I were more concerned about survivability, I'd go brute or tank, depending on how focused on survivability I wanted to be.