I've played a lot of scrappers over the years. My favorites are my fire/sr and my dark/shield. Both of them kick a lot of ***, and take a lot of names. Both are a bit late blooming though, so I don't know if that will bother you.
My current project is a war mace/energy aura scrapper, partly in homage to Mr. Playskool's epic thread, and partly because both sets have gone from sucking to being quite good. He's only 16 at the moment, but I like him a lot already. He does great damage, has a solid single target attack chain, and decent mitigation with his shields and the stuns/knockup from war mace. His only issue is endurance usage, which many low-level toons have to deal with, and will cease to be an issue in a few more levels. I've also put together an idea for a high-end level 50 build, and found it to be very competitive in terms of survivability and DPS with my fire/sr and dark/shield. So WM/EA could be a good one to try as well.
ElM/SD is a great combo. AAO is a taunt aura which keep enemies pretty tight around you at all times. LR and SC is still one of the best 1-2 AoE combo in the game. Toss in Spring Attack/Judgement/Fireball and you will be decimating groups, one after the other from mission start to end.
I also like Spines/DA. Double damage aura is nice and 2 good AoE attacks (Throw Spines and Spine Burst). Does not need a lot of recharge to run it's top attack chain and easy to reach softcap in S/L/E/N. I do not usually mind enemies running in fear as 2 attacks in the chain are ranged.
Honestly the most scrapper-lockish thing I've been playing recently has been my Staff/SR brute, although there's no reason it wouldn't work just about as well as a Scrapper. For various reasons it just loves to get just a little in over its head, and the combination of scaling resistances and high AoE and endurance discount means its almost designed for the experience of scrapper lock.
You have high defense (particularly because you can run all your toggles and stack staff's +def) so you can take on a lot early. You have scaling resistances so you get stronger the lower your health gets, which increases the perception of being in the danger zone. Your high AoE output means you can take on more numbers simultaneously. Form of Soul's end discount allows you to go all-out with maximum toggles and maximum offense including maximum use of AoEs constantly without running out of endurance so you are at maximum offense and defense right to the end.
I can't count the number of times I was so low on health the health bar actually disappeared completely and one last cycle of AoEs caused everything to drop around me simultaneously before they could finish me off. I seen numbers greater than 59% resistance in the attribute monitor multiple times where I've ultimately come out on top, implying I was at single digit health.
There are things I think are more powerful, but on Staff/SR, I *always* think there's a chance I'll win, no matter how many of them there are left and no matter how little of me is left. That's the sort of thing that breeds the scrapperlock mindset.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
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I think that's all going to depend on your definition of "pure," to be honest.|
Originally Posted by Nyghtmaire
What would the scrapper community recommend as the purest, most intense combination with which to experience the joys of scrapperlock?
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If you're looking for old-school, non-gimmick-y, one power activation = lots of hurt on the bad guys, I'd avoid any of the new-fangled primaries that involve combinations or combos/finishers, "levels of perfection," or momentum. This isn't to say they're not fun -- my main is a Dual Blades/Willpower scrapper, and I'm quite enjoying my recently 50th Staff/WP scrapper as well -- but they're a little more complicated than "mash a button and punch a guy in the face."
Old-school scrapper primaries that (mostly) consist of melee single target attacks, cones, and PBAoE spins include Broadsword, Claws, Katana, and Martial Arts, and their slightly-later-to the party cousins Battle Axe and War Mace. The other primaries all contain some unusual (and often set-defining) powers like ranged attacks or health or endurance drains.
For a secondary, I'd recommend an equally old-school set as well, like Invulnerability, Regeneration, Super Reflexes or Willpower. I'm a big fan of Willpower as a "set and forget" powerset -- there's not a lot of micromanagment, just toggle up and go! Plus, Willpower and Invulnerability (theoretically) have Taunt Auras to keep the bad guys from running away from you as you start carving through their ranks.
Of course, ALL the powersets available to scrappers are pretty nice, and there really aren't any awful combinations to pick from. Still, some are more complicated than others, and IMHO if you've got a complicated primary that requires a certain level of finesse and strategy paired up with a gimmicky secondary you'll be less likely to get into that total Zen scrapperlock zone the first few times.
Personally, I'd suggest Katana/Willpower. There's nothing fancy about it except for an "uh oh" power so you can Parry if you get in over your head, there's no knockback to worry about -- just knockup and knockdown -- and it's a fast animating set which still deals plenty of damage, and can still be quite an efficient late-game contender with IO's. Your mileage may vary, and after you start getting into the scrapperlock zone, you may wind up with a stableful of different types of scrappers!
"But it wasn't anything some purples and oranges and lots of screaming in fear couldn't handle." -- Werner
30 level 50's: 12 scrappers, 7 other random melee types, 11 blaster/blapper/support squishies, two accounts, and a TON of altitis since 4/28/04
I have to put up.. Street Justice and Energy armor.
Street Justice just for the visuals. The set is so much fun visually and its a bonus that it hits like a ton of bricks. I've taken every attack power in the set just so I can vary all of the various combination visually. It is just wicked, wicked awesome. I love street justice so far.
Energy Armor. It takes a while to get going but once you get the later powers the set just takes off. Its tough as nails, has regeneration, has healing, has hit point increases in the crashing tier 9.. and an aura that increases recharge the more it gets saturated. It is just... really really good and using an IO build can get an insane amount of Defenses spread around it. You can pretty much cap S/L F/I E/Ne don't think you can cap the Psi and NE is a little harder to cap.. S/L F/I and E are very easy to cap though.
Going to second fire/SR or staff/SR. It doesn't get more scrappery than toggling up your defenses and just wading in until you kill or be killed.
Apparently the form of essential scrapper-dom is as varied as there are flavors of ice cream. I'm certainly getting the sense that the original, core secondaries are a place to start - run the toggles and go to town - combined with active mitigation from the primary - mainly in the form of parry-esque abilities.
I sense some serious testing in the form street sweeping, then coming back to reread these posts to see how recent experience aids in the understanding.
Thank you all again for sharing. The information is amazing!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
...[I]t would be more proper to say this game is slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly dying.
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Hehe. Strong AND pretty is the only way to live. I love that thread (started on Justice)
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Originally Posted by firespray
My current project is a war mace/energy aura scrapper, partly in homage to Mr. Playskool's epic thread, and partly because both sets have gone from sucking to being quite good. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
...[I]t would be more proper to say this game is slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly dying.
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DB/WP was what first got me addicted to scrappers, very simple toggle and go secondary, and all the KD from the primary made me feel like I was in control of every fight.
I put that toon on the back burner for my main (Elec/Shield) and although that toon is better overall I get less scrapperlock (Partly because things die too fast!).
My newest project is kind of back to basics with DB/Nrg and I think it should be a great combination of both, with an almost toggle and go secondary, the same great KD feeling and the added mitigation from Energise and Energy Drain to allow for bigger things than my DB/WP was capable of.
Edit: I also find the combo system from DB encourages scrapperlock, because you have to concentrate on your target and your powers to make sure you perform the right combo.
Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"
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Other than the no/less redraw aspect this isn't a synergistic combo imo both Kat and WP sacrifice stuff for def but since they're providing competeing types of def they don't synergize
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Originally Posted by Eldorado
Personally, I'd suggest Katana/Willpower. There's nothing fancy about it except for an "uh oh" power so you can Parry if you get in over your head, there's no knockback to worry about -- just knockup and knockdown -- and it's a fast animating set which still deals plenty of damage, and can still be quite an efficient late-game contender with IO's.
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Divine Avalanche gives lethal defence doesn't it? Though you would have to accept a smashing hole.|
Originally Posted by Cheetatron
Other than the no/less redraw aspect this isn't a synergistic combo imo both Kat and WP sacrifice stuff for def but since they're providing competeing types of def they don't synergize
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Alternatively stacking enough DA would probably allow you to cap positions, even if it isn't synergistic.
Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"
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This. Holy carp this! My wife and I both rolled up staff/sr scrappers, with the thinking that we would let SR do the heavy lifting to the soft-cap and free us up to slot for hp, regen, recharge and/or damage.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Honestly the most scrapper-lockish thing I've been playing recently has been my Staff/SR brute, although there's no reason it wouldn't work just about as well as a Scrapper. For various reasons it just loves to get just a little in over its head, and the combination of scaling resistances and high AoE and endurance discount means its almost designed for the experience of scrapper lock.
You have high defense (particularly because you can run all your toggles and stack staff's +def) so you can take on a lot early. You have scaling resistances so you get stronger the lower your health gets, which increases the perception of being in the danger zone. Your high AoE output means you can take on more numbers simultaneously. Form of Soul's end discount allows you to go all-out with maximum toggles and maximum offense including maximum use of AoEs constantly without running out of endurance so you are at maximum offense and defense right to the end. I can't count the number of times I was so low on health the health bar actually disappeared completely and one last cycle of AoEs caused everything to drop around me simultaneously before they could finish me off. I seen numbers greater than 59% resistance in the attribute monitor multiple times where I've ultimately come out on top, implying I was at single digit health. There are things I think are more powerful, but on Staff/SR, I *always* think there's a chance I'll win, no matter how many of them there are left and no matter how little of me is left. That's the sort of thing that breeds the scrapperlock mindset. |
But we've completely forgotten to IO out our builds, preferring instead to keep rolling along on our +1x6 missions (been rolling that way since DO's on these). The scrapperlock persists even when not in combat! Starting out in Form of the Body until the end bar gets to about two-thirds gives a nice -res debuff and a res buff to me, then finishing out in Soul or Mind (depending on the amount of slows on us) can make you feel pretty invincible, regardless of your health bar.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
Quick update- started a broadsword\shield and a fire\sr. Also revived my staff\dark. Intend to roll out a staff\sr for comparison and something with willpower .... still digesting a primary for that one.
Anyhow, running them all up to the mid-20s to get a reasonable feel.
Oh....and some wrist braces for the anticipated carpal tunnel syndrome!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
...[I]t would be more proper to say this game is slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly dying.
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My broadsword shield scrapper is an absolute beast! I helped run LAM and couldn't be touched. It was fun to have other players ask me for my build so they could run it as well. You will love it.
WHO DAT!? WHO DER!?
The "classic" scrapperlock combo is Claws/SR.
No gimmicks to worry about.
No click powers other than Practiced Brawler (which should be on auto anyway).
Just hit things until they're dead or you are.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Wait, what kind of zone is that?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
in the danger zone.
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Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
It's become click-intensive, but for pure "uptime" it's hard to beat /regen...you can go from mob to mob without even slowing down. My main scrapper is BS/regen, but based on playing a staff/EnA scrapper, I would think a staff/regen scrapper would pretty much stay in scrapperlock 24/7
Global Chat Handle: @Greenstar
Active on Justice & Triumph
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This kind of zone came to mind.
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Originally Posted by Moonlighter
Wait, what kind of zone is that?
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The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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Elec Melee's main problem on a Scrapper is its dismal single target capability. It's great in that it's an exotic damage type, the visual F/X rock, but if you're soloing an EB it's frustrating. I have both a level 50 ElM/SD and a SS/SD, and the SS/SD is the stronger, more well-rounded character. It has terrific AoE due to Footstomp but very solid single target too. |
Originally Posted by ricohdah
ElM/SD is a great combo. AAO is a taunt aura which keep enemies pretty tight around you at all times. LR and SC is still one of the best 1-2 AoE combo in the game. Toss in Spring Attack/Judgement/Fireball and you will be decimating groups, one after the other from mission start to end.
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If you are interested in the ElM powerset, do it on a Stalker! It has outstanding single target *and* AoE damage.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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#1: This: |
Originally Posted by Cheetatron
Other than the no/less redraw aspect this isn't a synergistic combo imo both Kat and WP sacrifice stuff for def but since they're providing competeing types of def they don't synergize
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Originally Posted by PrincessDarkstar
Divine Avalanche gives lethal defence doesn't it? Though you would have to accept a smashing hole.
Alternatively stacking enough DA would probably allow you to cap positions, even if it isn't synergistic. |
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Originally Posted by Nyghtmaire
( fine print: I have never leveled a scrapper past 12...
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Willpower is a pretty smooth ride to 50 just with SO's, and I feel that Katana's simple, fun, and (at least used to) do a ton of DPS. I started to suggest Martial Arts, too, but I still like the "oh, no!!" bacon-saver that is Divine Avalanche. And as noted, no (or minimal) redraw!
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
The "classic" scrapperlock combo is Claws/SR.
No gimmicks to worry about. |
But yeah, classic, simple, and plenty powerful -- the only reason I didn't suggest SR is that while it's awesome at higher levels (softcappable with just SO's!), it always felt sort of squishy and End-intensive at lower levels to me -- YMMV.
"But it wasn't anything some purples and oranges and lots of screaming in fear couldn't handle." -- Werner
30 level 50's: 12 scrappers, 7 other random melee types, 11 blaster/blapper/support squishies, two accounts, and a TON of altitis since 4/28/04
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Capping melee, lethal, e/n/f/c doesn't leave a "hole" IMO. Yeah, smashing is open, but how many attacks do you know of that have smashing without any of the other types you are already protected from? Hurl boulder and a few attacks from earth control/earth assault. You also have decent resists (capped with T9) to those attacks. That is MUCH less than what is left from the psi hole of other sets IMO.
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Originally Posted by PrincessDarkstar
Divine Avalanche gives lethal defence doesn't it? Though you would have to accept a smashing hole.
Alternatively stacking enough DA would probably allow you to cap positions, even if it isn't synergistic. |
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Hurl boulder is a seriously dangerous attack. Pure ranged/smashing? Quite a few builds let that straight in. DE do a lot of it, along with ranged/toxic.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Kingkillaha
Capping melee, lethal, e/n/f/c doesn't leave a "hole" IMO. Yeah, smashing is open, but how many attacks do you know of that have smashing without any of the other types you are already protected from? Hurl boulder and a few attacks from earth control/earth assault. You also have decent resists (capped with T9) to those attacks. That is MUCH less than what is left from the psi hole of other sets IMO.
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As for the OP's question? I will make the same suggestion I always do: Claws/Inv.
I rolled a claw/inv toon the first week the game was live, and I still play it regularly. Old School Nasty.
Focus/followup/spin, and a lowby filler attack is all this combo needs or wants. Invincibility keeps them nice and close, and makes sure you never miss.A claw/wp is similar, and makes for a smoother leveling experience, at the expense of a little less top end.
The important thing is to HAVE FUN.
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True, I hate DE. Still, with ~50% resistance to s/l (assuming tough) without SoW and over 40hp/s regen with no enemies in range the smashing hole is not as big as it would seem on first glance.
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Hurl boulder is a seriously dangerous attack. Pure ranged/smashing? Quite a few builds let that straight in. DE do a lot of it, along with ranged/toxic.
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I agree, on a WP if you must have a hole having it smashing damage is one of the better places to have it.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Kingkillaha
True, I hate DE. Still, with ~50% resistance to s/l (assuming tough) without SoW and over 40hp/s regen with no enemies in range the smashing hole is not as big as it would seem on first glance.
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Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"
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After reading through the "no obligation to save me*" thread I am pumped and fascinated by the root, no the essence, of scrapperlock. I dig that any AT can achieve the holy focus of such a state, and I imagine that any combination of scrapper can rock the 'lock.
What would the scrapper community recommend as the purest, most intense combination with which to experience the joys of scrapperlock? I hope to make this my next project after my current mastermind is complete.
( fine print: I have never leveled a scrapper past 12 (alt distraction), but have sufficient points banked to acquire locked powersets. No other limitations. )
Please accept my thanks for any advice you may have. I am looking forward to the crazy!
* http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=188316