Can't use Mid's from here, so I'll stick to generalizations.
I adore Claws/WP for general use.
Willpower is durable, handles a broad range of unusual damage and status effects, poses no difficult choices while leveling up, gives you tons of endurance, and is almost completely fire-and-forget, allowing you to concentrate on clawing. Its major drawbacks are some weakness to really heavy burst damage, limited defense debuff resistance (DDR), and the fact that when you DO get in over your head, there aren't a lot of ways you can react...no heal to hit, no special clickable mitigation, and your Tier 9 is only incrementally stronger, not an order of magnitude better, so using it doesn't always turn around a crisis.
Scrapper Claws are fast and easy on the endurance, while providing a variety of entertaining effects, and Spin is probably the best PBAoE in the game.
That said, for AVs, it's not your best choice, as a significant part of your mitigation comes from multiple foes, and it isn't AS strong against burst damage as some secondaries (AVs are the biggest hitters out there).
Dark also fares better with lots of fodder for the fantastic heal, and neither adds much damage output (Dark's damage aura is great for crowds, but less important for fighting AVs).
Electric, however, not only gives you solid resistances that will blunt burst damage, it also gives you +recharge to significantly help you crank out the top-end dps chain, and also a damage aura to boot, for a little extra help whittling down AVs. It doesn't have defense, and will need it, but you'll want to invest in high defense if you're building anything for late-game AVs.
Therefore, if you're primarily AV-focused, I recommend Claws/Electric.
Claws/WP has been a blast though.
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Everything Sailboat said is sound.
I will recommend Claws/Dark, but I always recommend /Dark, so I might be biased. My Claws/Dark is actually a brute, and I have not played a more effective mindless mass murder machine (alliteration aside).
The thing I would like to impress is that Follow Up is too good of a power to not combine with a damage aura, especially on a scrapper. You end up with a constant, large damage bonus to your damage aura that will always be ticking away at the crowds.
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I would say Claws/sr, but Claws/elec would likely be the one I would pick since of the three it doesn't require larger mobs to feed it's mitigation. I would aim for as much def as you can get within reason, perma Energize, and then whatever attack chain you can get the best DPS from.
Quote:
For clarification:|
Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
I would say Claws/sr, but Claws/elec would likely be the one I would pick since of the three it doesn't require larger mobs to feed it's mitigation.
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Dark Armor does not require larger mobs to feed its mitigation either. One target will heal more hit points and more often than Energize will. Further, with just two SOs of heal enhancement, Dark Regeneration heals more than your base HP with two targets hit.
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Quote:
Energize also does it at a much lower end cost. Yes, you can IO DR out and add in the +end proc, but if it's just an AV you are fighting, then that's a low chance to proc.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
For clarification:
Dark Armor does not require larger mobs to feed its mitigation either. One target will heal more hit points and more often than Energize will. Further, with just two SOs of heal enhancement, Dark Regeneration heals more than your base HP with two targets hit. |
And there's always that 5% that DR could fail, and in some cases higher... stupid Cims...
Not looking at those builds, I'd go with Dark though. Easy to pull off the defense you need to tackle AVs
The problem with /Elec is it can't soft cap to everything. It can manage S/L and has high energy resists so against those types of AVs you'll be fine but you will hit the wall against F/C based AVs, negative based AVs and (as many scrappers are) Psi AVs.
Willpower, on the other hand, can cap S/L, F/C/ and E/N and still have good resists and excellent regeneration. You just have fewer holes and can do stupid scrapper tricks in more situations.
As for Dark, when you are squeezing every bit of defense into a build that you can, the extra defense from Cloak of Shadows makes a big difference. Plus Cloak of Fear provides -ToHit which synergizes. But the set is an End pig so unlike WP and Elec you'll need to invest in Body Mastery.
Elec is a nice damage oriented set, but getting extreme defense is tough unless you go with a Sword set.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
Quote:
No. A) Almost all attacks have a smashing or lethal component, so even against a F/C AV you will still be dodging very nearly the same. B) Electric has Power Surge, which will cap your resistances to everything but psi (which still is not a hole, as you get solid psi resistance from Static Shield). C) Energize does better for you when against a single target than RttC. S/L softcapped Electric is one the sturdiest sets available.|
Originally Posted by Moonlighter
The problem with /Elec is it can't soft cap to everything. It can manage S/L and has high energy resists so against those types of AVs you'll be fine but you will hit the wall against F/C based AVs, negative based AVs and (as many scrappers are) Psi AVs.
Willpower, on the other hand, can cap S/L, F/C/ and E/N and still have good resists and excellent regeneration. You just have fewer holes and can do stupid scrapper tricks in more situations. ... Elec is a nice damage oriented set, but getting extreme defense is tough unless you go with a Sword set. |
Edit: Example from my own db/elec build. I'll pretend we are in wonderland and an AV is doing pure fire damage, so no smash/lethal at all. As a side effect of getting my s/l to 45%, my melee defense is 39%, so with power surge on I'm taking 2.75% [based on 100% of enemy attacks] of that incoming damage, and I regain an average of 48.4 hp/sec. Plugging into will power, at defense softcap, maxed out for resistance and with SoW on (and same slotting for health to be fair), I'm taking 3.81% of that AV's pure fire damage and regaining 46.7 hp/sec (no set bonuses, though, since I don't have a full build). The willpower is taking more than an extra third of the damage; whether you think the extra regen from set bonuses for willpower make up that difference or not is up to you.
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I am well aware of the advantages of S/L capping, and do it myself on not only scrappers but other ATs. In the AV arcs you still run into plenty of AVs that will hurt Elec.|
Originally Posted by Microcosm
No. A) Almost all attacks have a smashing or lethal component, so even against a F/C AV you will still be dodging very nearly the same. B) Electric has Power Surge, which will cap your resistances to everything but psi (which still is not a hole, as you get solid psi resistance from Static Shield). C) Energize does better for you when against a single target than RttC. S/L softcapped Electric is one the sturdiest sets available.
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Quote:
| Edit: Example from my own db/elec build. I'll pretend we are in wonderland and an AV is doing pure fire damage, so no smash/lethal at all. As a side effect of getting my s/l to 45%, my melee defense is 39%, so with power surge on I'm taking 2.75% of that incoming damage, and I regain an average of 48.4 hp/sec. Plugging into will power, at defense softcap, maxed out for resistance and with SoW on (and same slotting for health to be fair), I'm taking 3.81% of that AV's pure fire damage and regaining 46.7 hp/sec (no set bonuses, though, since I don't have a full build). The willpower is taking more than an extra third of the damage; whether you think the extra regen from set bonuses for willpower make up that difference or not is up to you. |
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
Quote:
Where? The most frequent attacks not paired with s/l are actually energy by a large margin, which happens to be electric's strength. For others, even electric's 'weakness' of negative, you can use power surge, as mentioned.|
Originally Posted by Moonlighter
I am well aware of the advantages of S/L capping, and do it myself on not only scrappers but other ATs. In the AV arcs you still run into plenty of AVs that will hurt Elec.
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Quote:
| I guess we are counting tier 9's now that incarnate powers let you take out an AV in the up time? |
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I can vouch for claws/elec. It seems like the most natural claws pairing to me - it has the least redraw among the damage aura sets, broadly sturdy (a trait it shares with dark), and the unique perks it gets such as immunity to endurance drain and a recharge boost are handy at any level but especially at the high end. That's not to say that dark doesn't have great perks of its own, both would be killer. I agree with Sailboat's rationale for AVs though.
I got mine to like 40% s/l with little attention paid to the other types and while he certainly is not my absolute strongest scrapper, he doesn't really have any problems with any particular content. Cimerorans are one of the main threats but of course if you play smart you aren't going to die on any given ITF, running ahead to solo objectives or not. So, great durability while you're kicking out aoe at delirious rates. I haven't even gotten any incarnate slots past alpha yet because it feels sort of unnecessary.
One last thing I'd point out is that unlike some combinations, claws/elec exemplars extremely well down to 30. You have all of your aoe by 32 with no real need for epic attacks, you keep all of your endurance recovery which is pretty unique given how many scrappers need to wait until epics or incarnate stuff to get that sorted, and of course building for s/l makes it easy to pack in almost all of your defense at 30. Really fun combination for sutters, and numinas, but mantis and cits are like some kind of cruel joke by you on the NPCs.
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Off the top of my head, the problematic ones that are part of the accolade: |
Originally Posted by Microcosm
Where? The most frequent attacks not paired with s/l are actually energy by a large margin, which happens to be electric's strength. For others, even electric's 'weakness' of negative, you can use power surge, as mentioned.
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Infernal, Black Swan, Diabolique
There's also Baphomet... I won't count the Envoy of Shadows or Ghost Widow because they are such a pain to solo for most secondaries.
Capped S/L is very good, but it still has holes to many groups. At high settings against many factions with Fire/Cold, Negative and Psi. Circle of Thorns, Carnies, even Vampyres stacked in a 8/+2 group of council can cause issues.
On top of that capping S/L in Electric uses up most of your melee attacks and replaces other sets that give you needed recharge. It is not a trivial exercise to S/L cap electric. Elec needs recharge for it's mitigation as well.
Quote:
| Why would you leave tier 9's out of it? If you can't have it up the whole time, fight the AV without it and then pop it partially through the fight. If you don't use the tier 9's and we are still in the fictitious scenario of that pure fire AV, the willpower will take 4.555% of damage and the electric 5.368%. In that scenario the electric is taking a little less than a fifth extra damage. |
Hey, maybe you're right. With incarnate powers and lore pets I will give you the point that Electric with it's tier 9 is potent, and characters have such a high damage output that they can probably take out the AV during the uptime or close to it. I tend to discuss sets minus the tier 9 since at pre-incarnate damage outputs they don't tend to run long enough for stupid scrapper tricks like AV hunting and the old Rikti challenge. I guess it's a new world where the DPS is so high these are much more useful.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
I honestly don't see how you could have problems with the groups you mentioned there on a claws/elec, Moon. Circle are an absolute pushover for any scrapper past level 40 but claws/elec won't even have to use energize. When I run council on mine I grab aggro from three or four groups at once so that replacements will be available for the increasingly dead gentlemen around me. With carnies I wouldn't do more than two groups at once, as more than two ring mistresses or masters can cause problems for anyone, but just one to two of each at a time is nothing. You tear them down so fast that they don't get a chance to stack debuffs or controls on you. Assuming you're doing this solo, you've also got a big fat pile of inspirations running at all times.
The only place I could really see being worried about /elec's survivability is trials, but its strengths shine especially brightly there. You might as well just ignore all the energy damage and endurance drains, and it's very solid against the psi too. The only real danger on trials is the fear from Augurs, but that's dangerous to any scrapper that isn't /dark.
Well, everything recycle said is true. Circle of thorns are an absolute joke. Carnies' biggest problem is enddrain, to which electric is immune. Most attacks coming from Council Vampyrs have s/l or are melee based. The only attack that would be bothersome is gloom/dark blast (ranged, pure negative).
The difference between the willpower and the electric without tier 9's against the pure fire was very, very minor. Even then, how many of Infernal's attacks are pure fire damage? Against his attacks that are pure fire, the willpower will do very minorly better (the electric takes 1.18 times the damage the willpower takes); against his attacks that have a s/l component, the electric will do quite a bit better because the defense will be equal but electric has much higher fire resistance (the willpower will take 1.85 times the damage the electric takes against those!).
The worst case you mentioned was Black Swan. I don't know how many of her powers are pure negative, but I am sure they hurt without power surge. Should still be able to solo her.
If you would like a reference, mauk2 made an AE arc designed to be a survival test for a team a while back (it's got plenty of negative damage). I managed it +4/x8 on my elec scrapper, and I know at least one other person did it with their elec brute.
Bottom line is /electric with s/l softcap is amazingly sturdy all around as well as good offensively. It pays for this by being absolutely terrible (second worst after fire) during the low levels and on SO's, a problem Willpower never has.
Edit: just realized the fire example numbers are off a little bit cause my build is getting some f/c resistance from purple sets. Doesn't make a huge difference though.
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I would go claws/wp or claws/dark simply because as a scrapper you will not get as much mitigation on claws/elec as you would say on a brute. I do not play resistance sets that have the potential to go past 75% resistance by a large margin on a scrapper. It just seems like a waste in that area. I have a lvl claws/wp. At first he wasnt that fun but once I got excreviate I was in heaven. That attack crits so freaking much and hard. I got about 50ish% recharge time on him at level 50 and I got almost perma double stacked followup. Now I shred groups way too fast. It just seems insane of the kill speed. My only weakness is those crey tank guys. When you attack them they say "lol claws" and walk away. Outside of that its like a freaking blender for large groups. I just wish you could have claws and shields together.
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I don't know if AV bashing is the only thing you want to do with this scrapper or not, but personally the only secondaries I'd pair Claws with on a scrapper are Invul and WP. I cry every time when I see mobs running away from my Claws/SR, outta the radius of Spin, due to not having a taunt aura.
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Very very true: Caws/electric is a fantastic combo, but the lack of taunt aura will make you want to pull out your hair.|
Originally Posted by Exxar
I don't know if AV bashing is the only thing you want to do with this scrapper or not, but personally the only secondaries I'd pair Claws with on a scrapper are Invul and WP. I cry every time when I see mobs running away from my Claws/SR, outta the radius of Spin, due to not having a taunt aura.
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This is easily fixed, though: Roll a brute.
I don't know about AV handling (still leveling it myself), but I vote Claws/FA. I decided to try it this morning after destroying/rebuilding an old toon concept. Sure, it's pretty squishy for a scrap, but I really enjoy the damage output from FA. Plus, Blazing Aura + Spin is just plain fun in my book. He's only at 18, so I can't say much about the mid-to-late game, but he's been pretty fun so far. Pretty sure I'll really be able to kick some butt once I get me some Burn action.
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A bit off topic: Any chance you can post a build of x/Elec for a softcap build? I would like reference for my StJ/Elec when Freedom launches.
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Originally Posted by Microcosm
Bottom line is /electric with s/l softcap is amazingly sturdy all around as well as good offensively. It pays for this by being absolutely terrible (second worst after fire) during the low levels and on SO's, a problem Willpower never has.
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Thanks for the responses, all. I didn't pick SR or INV as I already have a fire/SR and DM/Invul which I have used for soloing AV's. What I really need is I21 to come along quickly so I can have access to 12 extra char slots and make them all up on my home server. Think I might try the claws/elec or dark first and wait a bit for a WP alt.
Stryph, check the claws/elec build in my 1st post as this has softcapped smash/lethal defense although it uses the glad armor +3% def IO though.
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Yeah at the moment, that's a bit too many hero merits for my alt I'm thinking of revamping for Freedom. But I gave it a look, so you just went with mostly reactive armors for the toggles huh?
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Originally Posted by Artegal
Stryph, check the claws/elec build in my 1st post as this has softcapped smash/lethal defense although it uses the glad armor +3% def IO though.
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I did use reactives for the s/l/e/ne bonuses. I guess you could change one of the armor sets to 3 Aegis IO's for an extra 3% f/c defense, still softcapped to s/l and with the spare slot put in confront for another 3% f/c defense. Whatever way you go, sofcapping will be rather expensive (4 Kin combat sets in the build as well).
I won't have access to miss for a while, but you can check for a guide by unnamed hero (?) I think about softcapping electric with several sets. I dont always like his slotting or trying to get defense to other types, but it should help with ideas. It's generally going to be expensive.
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Hi peeps!
Am considering my first claws scrapper but am unsure of a primary to pair with it yet. My options are currently Elec, Dark and WP, and am wondering what other's thoughts are on these for late game AV bashing. Have thrown together a few builds as follows:
Claws/Elec
Claws/Dark
Claws/WP