WP & FM Combo opinions

Greetings all,

I currently have a level 42 FM/WP scrapper and really enjoying to combo, however I’m wondering if this is the best archetype for this combo.

Scrappers have great damage (of course), but Brute damage is great too, plus they have taunt and WP has advantages on a brute. I don’t normally like chasing fury, but heck… the advantages seems worth it.

I guess my real question might be with the tank. I understand the damage is less, but I forgot all about combustion. With going WP/FM/Pyre I can’t help but to think that damage is going to be very good overall, even without great crits.

I understand the concept of tanks vs scrappers vs brutes, and the strengths of each class. I guess my real question is… can this tank dish out the damage enough that I won’t miss my scrapper?

BTW: Although I team when I can, I would say 80% of my game time is solo. Also, I don’t AV hunt unless I’m in a group.

Thanks!

Personally, all of my FM characters are tankers, currently working on an Inv/FM (level 21). The thought of giving up a massive PbAoE makes me cringe.

That said, I understand the FM is very good on brutes with fury affecting the DoT. If you solo a lot, FA might be a consideration for either brute or tanker if you're wanting to dish out piles of damage. Then again, I dislike WP so I'm a little biased towards the non-WP sets.

Will WP/Fire compete with a scrapper for damage? Doubtful, but the extra AoE damage is nice to have, and you'll enjoy much more survivability with less IO investment.

In the end, it'll be a solid combo on any of the AT's.

Personally I adore my FM Scrapper... but she's FM/Shield, which is an outstanding combo on a Scrapper due to extremely high, exotic typed base damages + AAO + Crits... I do have an old Ice/FM Tanker who, once upon a time, did decent AoE damage, but... really, now, if you want a tanky damage dealer, you should be looking at a Brute, the difference in survival isn't nearly as massive as the difference in damage output.

As far as WP goes, I strongly prefer WP for a Tank or Brute to a Scrapper due to the base/max HP difference affording them more HP/s from their regen, and better damage resist caps.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

I wouldn't go tanker simply because of Combustion... I love my fire tankers, but combustion isn't the reason for it (I do prefer Cremate, especially when I can skip Scorch-without-bruising).

On my Fire/Fire Tanker I never found Combustion that great, mostly because it's one of those powers that take forever to animate to do a little bit more damage than scorch does (and without the bruising)... It animates in 3 seconds and only does around 58 unenhanced damage over 7 more seconds at level 50 (scorch does around 48, fire sword - the small version - does 73, FSC does 83)...

It felt very underwhelming and I ended up respec-ing out of it after feeling I had better things to do with my 3 seconds, even if it was landing big ST attacks on a boss. Then again, with Fire Armor I had FE, Burn and the damage aura to spoil me and things were melting in AoE anyway...

For my Fire/SD Scrapper (who wouldn't have combustion anyway) I picked up epic Fireball and I found it MUCH superior to Combustion* even for tankers, so if I had to choose between both I'd definitely go for Fireball. Of course, if you dont mind the long animation so much and plan to grab and use both, plus FSC, I guess more AoE is always good, but for me that's no reason to justify picking a tanker over a brute or scrapper (the greater survivability and taunting would be the reasons one should pick the tanker, I guess).



*On a tanker, FB does around 51 damage in a 1s animation, opposed to combustions 58 in 3s. About 60% of Combustion's damage is DoT over a long 7s (starting AFTER the long animation, I think), while FB is mostly frontloaded. FB hits 16 targets, instead of Combustion's 10. You can fire FB from range (I really love doing the FB taunt!). The only bad things about FB are that you can only pick it up at 44 at the soonest, the longer recharge time and maybe the fact that a bit of it's damage is smashing...