What are the Pros and Cons of...?
Criteria: High recharge is mostly the number one goal of DBs. If you can get their ultimate combo in a seamless flow, your damage becomes ridiculous (I think it's Blinding Feint, Ablating Strike, Vengeful Strike, Sweeping, repeat). The problem is the required recharge is extremely high up and combos in general are pretty "meh" on top of One Thousand Cuts being pretty average to junk for a T9 (compared to the wonders of Foot Stomp, Midnight Grasp, LROD, etc). While you CAN use OTC for its knockup, the animation is way too long to make this any more than quaint, especially compared to LROD and Foot Stomp. This also means your secondary will be hinging towards defense/recharge (SR being the quintessential one)
PVE: When you break the aforementioned recharge barrier, damage goes ridiculous as long as you can keep the chain up going pretty steadily on single targets. AOE becomes part of your chain, due to the nature of Sweeping Strikes and Attack Vitals, and Typhoon's Edge is alright as filler aoe if you need (Sweeping should be more than enough).
PvP: Meh. No real source of spike damage, no real self healing, and nothing's gonna sit still long enough to let you stack blinding feints. Meh to weak all around.
Farming: Because aoe is inherent in their rotation, they can make pretty decent farmers. The problem arises in their secondary, as it has to be recharge focused (SR or ELA, with ELA needing alot more due to a lack of defensive powers for LOTGS), they lose out to standard SS/FA or Shields. They can easily turn out above average if built right. FA is also right out, as it's got terrible synergy with DB and doesn't lend itself to any recharge (which DB needs in spades).
Soloing AV's: As mentioned above, DB single target damage is quite respectable if not among the best, providing you get the recharge. Due to Ablating granting the achilles proc, on top of the near consistent Attack Vitals and Blinding Feint, DBs grind through AVs in good time. The problem comes back to survivability tools, of which they really have none (Vengeful won't knock up an AV). If you can survive an AV's constant attacks, whether through defense cap and insps or just being lucky, DB will -destroy- most single targets with enough recharge.
DB Scrappers and Brutes are roughly about the same, with the edge somewhat leaning towards Scrappers due to their follow up clone and crits, as the animation of the attack cycle is actually quite fast. DBs are really a great meat grinder, but require more thought than most builds and both high recharge and defense cap to really shine. Avoid DB to the best of your ability for tanks and stalkers, as it's the worst set by and far for stalkers, and bruising really ruins the rhythm for tanks. Beyond that, choose whichever you like more, but likely scrappers if you want maximum optimization (you won't care about the lack of real survivability tools without a taunt aura and crits are very nice with BF).
Same as every comparison between Brutes and Scrappers.
Scrappers:
+Higher damage
-Lower HP cap, res cap
Brute:
+Higher HP cap, res cap
-Lower damage
PvE:
Any Brute can tank, they get taunt, Scrappers get stuck with [Confront]. Once they get fury up enough, they can put out decent damage.
Because of a lower damage base, DB's Blinding Feint doesn't help as much on Brutes as it does for Scrappers.
PvP:
Because of needing to build fury, they won't do as well in the hit-and-go PvP that is standard in CoH, Scrappers will come out on top there. Also, higher caps mean nothing in PvP because Diminishing Returns makes everyone suck (yay balance).
But as far as DB goes, Criting on 1k cuts is just amazing. Other than that, it needs combos to do good damage, and you cannot do that in PvP.
Farming:
DB is ok for farming, it has good AoE. Not going to be the best, but I enjoy mowing down things on my DB/EA Brute. Prolly kill faster on a Scrapper. Especially if it was paired with FA or Elec Armor.
Soloing AV's:
Brute just won't be able to put the damage out, tried it on my DB/EA Brute. Might be possible, but will take FOREVER.
Scrappers... Yes, DB can solo AV's. Blinding Feint->Attack Vitals for the poor man's attack chain can do it. For better, faster results Blinding Feint->Ablating String->Sweeping Strike is better. Put the AH proc in AS and the PvP-res proc in SS.
**Edit**
Kenteko. My DB/EA Brute easily achieves the BF->Attack Vitals chain with only 40% recharge + Hasten.
Much harder to get SS to recharge in the animation time of BF->AS. Which is 1.452 + 1.188 = 2.64 second recharge, starting with a base of 11 seconds recharge equaling a 240%% recharge if my maths are correct. (99% recharge can be easily gotten with recharge enhancements in the power itself).
Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.
Thanks all great info, much appreciated.
Ok...how about Secondaries?
I was looking at WP, SR, Inv...already have a Regen. I'm going to go with Scrapper...and add in the villian Shmeld. I'm not locked into any of those, just ones I though of; suggestions?
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
DB/EA is a nice combo, IMO.
Scrappers benefit more from +dam than Brutes.
DB/Elec Armor and /FA is nice with the Damage Aura. DB/Invuln is a good combo and the +to hit of Invincibility helps with combos in the lower levels. Grab Aid Self and you will be hard to kill and do great AoE and ST damage.
SR's Practiced Brawler mez protection can be annoying, especially when you have hasten as well. Just noting. WP can also be decent so I've heard, never had much success with WP.
Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.
A DB scrapper and a DB Brute?
Criteria:
PvE
PvP
Farming
Soloing AV's