I'd absolutely go with Katana/. To begin with, it complements /Fire mechanically, offering defence to go with your resistance and heals, as well as some knockup mitigation. The animations are lightning fast, with Gambler's Cut making attack chain construction easy as pie. It also offers you a second damage type, though fire-resistant enemies aren't terribly common. The Fire/ swords aren't bad - Greater Fire Sword is a good attack, as is Fire Sword Circle, but the regular Fire Sword is lackluster. Still... well, it's all damage. And you already have 'all damage' covered in your secondary.
Katana for a leveling spec, as already mentioned will make leveling a breeze thanks to Divine Avalanche's defense bonus. However if you are planning on a high end spec where you are going to softcap S/L anyways I'd absolutely go with Fire/Fire.
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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
Katana for a leveling spec, as already mentioned will make leveling a breeze thanks to Divine Avalanche's defense bonus. However if you are planning on a high end spec where you are going to softcap S/L anyways I'd absolutely go with Fire/Fire.
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Does Fire Melee do significantly more damage than Katana? This will indeed be my main (and only) melee incarnate raider most likely. I'm rerolling the Joan character in my signature from a Broadsword/Fire Scrapper to a Brute. I could always fall back to the Broadsword/Fire Scrapper. But I do like Katana's animations much more.
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Yes, but I don't have specific numbers for you. |
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Does Fire Melee do significantly more damage than Katana? This will indeed be my main (and only) melee incarnate raider most likely. I'm rerolling the Joan character in my signature from a Broadsword/Fire Scrapper to a Brute. I could always fall back to the Broadsword/Fire Scrapper. But I do like Katana's animations much more.
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Here's some things to note though (without me having to open mids)
-Fire's PBAOE is much better than Kat's (more damage, better radius) The longer recharge isn't hugely significant once you're all IO'd up.
-The lack of redraw issues will help with synergy with /fire and any patron attacks.
-Fire is also much less resisted compared to Kat's Lethal.
-The top fire attack chain for FM scrappers is incin>gfs>cremate, though it may be different for brutes with Gloom as an option, someone else would have to comment on that.
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Here is how I would look at it.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Does Fire Melee do significantly more damage than Katana? This will indeed be my main (and only) melee incarnate raider most likely. I'm rerolling the Joan character in my signature from a Broadsword/Fire Scrapper to a Brute. I could always fall back to the Broadsword/Fire Scrapper. But I do like Katana's animations much more.
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Do you use Parry on your BS/fire scrapper? A lot?
If the answer is "yes I use it a lot! it keeps me alive!!" then you better use katana.
If the answer is "no, parry is ok, but really I just use headsplitter to smash faces!! then fire is an option.
Now, I made a fire/fire brute waaay back like issue 7 I think. Still got him I bet if I go look on victory server.... anyway, I found he could lay out dmg like no ones buisness. but then he got his butt kicked almost as much most of the time. Relied on inspirations too much for my tastes. of course, IO's make a big difference. This guy was SO's obviously in I7.
You must consider IO's in this decision. katana is a solid set. If you cram crazy recharge into an IO build for katana, it's ST dmg output increases enormously as the tier 8 and 9 are up more often. IMO, fire does not respond to crazy recharge the way katana does. If you arent going to go into high rech bonuses, fire will win the dmg hands down. i think katana potentially can outdo it when you hit that sweetspot of recharge. fire armor is not the easiest to get recharge bonuses out of though so the whole point might be moot
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Yeah I bet if Eldagore IOd and respecced his character he would feel crazy powerful.
Fire/fire is insane. Yes, the sword attacks for fire are all good, particularly Fire Sword Circle. Greater Fire Sword does about the same damage as Incinerate only that it does it all up front. Fire Sword is your standard tier 2 attack.
You would basically be trading knockup and defense for far more damage in the long run, so it's kinda up to you. I can only speak with lots of experience as a scrapper, and the one and only problem is dealing with running mobs from Burn, which you won't have a problem with as a brute.
Crazy damage - build up, fiery embrace, and all of those scaling DoTs on top of the interface of your choice that deals damage - you can concentrate on your survivability abilities and less on your damage because fire/fire does such crazy amounts of it by default.
I would highly encourage Spiritual Core Alpha to get healing flames boosted up. This is the exact build my scrapper uses; naturally the brute side would be slightly different in the 40s but I would love to hear feedback on it.
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I'd love to see someone try to numerically justify calling FM/ "much more damaging" than kat/. Flashing steel and the lotus drops are leagues better than breath of fire and FSC. Flashing steel's giant arc means you're pretty much going to hit five targets if there are five enemies on one side of you. Breath of fire's tiny arc means you have to do the backwards hop tango to hit five targets even if there are ten targets on one side of you. The lotus drops does superior DPA to FSC and it does it both faster and more frequently. The only way that FSC can compete is in its larger radius, but last I checked it wasn't that difficult to get ten dudes crowded around you when you have a powerful taunt aura. Golden dragonfly is not as good as GFS for DPA... if you only hit one target with it. Yeah I did just say that breath of fire's arc was tiny, clearly GD's is tinier still, yet the difference is that it's still very competent if it only hits one thing.
Is the st DPS as good as fire's? Doesn't look like it to me, but how much more do you value st DPS than aoe DPS? Is not the point of a /FA brute in the first place to be an aoe machine? At that, katana beats fire.
Having given this a bit more thought, I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat.
Kat/FA is empirically better than FM/FA. Why is that? Burn -> FS -> GD -> FS -> TLD -> FS -> GD -> FS is why that is. With each of those four powers slotted with oblits, hasten, and a little global rech (20% of which is provided by said oblits) you have an all-aoe attack chain. Not just all aoe, but all damn good aoe, with procs for days. If you're up against a hard target, swap out TLD and swap in either SD or gloom, whichever you prefer. I would use SD since it takes kinetic combats, as does GC which in this build is simply a KC mule. Already we've got 15% s/l defense from bonuses. Oh, you decided to keep divine avalanche? Make that 18.75%.
So to recap, kat/FA is a beautiful blender of high DPA pbaoes and cones, which range from wide area to more focused, the better to chew up bosses as you go through the spawn. As you're rapt with your own dance of death, the FM/FA next to you is going to be standing there wishing fireball didn't have a 32 second recharge and breath of fire wasn't doo-doo.
Huh, I made myself want a Kat/FA brute.
Breath of Fire sucks and I would never recommend it. Lethal vs fire resistance, on top of constantly having fire DoTs helps quite a bit. I guess the argument you are making is that you get a melee cone added to burn and lotus drops vs the lesser fire resistance you meet and the fire DoTs.
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When I did spread sheets in beta (which means it may have changed) Fire had the advantage is EPS and ST, while Kat had the advantage in AoE if you could maximize both FS and TLD. I honestly feel Fire's AoE is more easily maximized, and I have difficulty getting optimal results from Kat. This is my failing, more than the set. However, once you worked in resistances there as little advantage to Kat other than DA. Resistance to Lethal is everywhere, and it's granny.
I have one of both on live, and the jury is still out. I love DA, and I simply love Kat, but until I get them both fully IO'd out and incarnated, I honestly can't put one over the other for end-game. For Leveling, definitely Kat, and that's entirely due to DA. For Style, Definitely Kat, and that's entirely due to my bias.
PS: redraw has never bothered me. I'd probably even play DP/TA. YMMV greatly.
Either works conceptually, due to the swords in Fire Melee. I hate redraw but I notice a lot of the Katana attacks look like fast animators.
Do people normally take all of the sword powers in Fire Melee? I'd hate to get to high levels and find out its better to rarely use the swords, since sword carrying is a major aspect of this character.