Maelwys

You don't need acrobatics with Perma-Practised Brawler. Knockback and Hold Protection is included, and it can't get knocked off like other scrapper's toggles, so even if enough holds are stacked on you to mez you you'll still have the same mag of hold/KB/etc. resistance there till PB wears off naturally.

If you're not going to 3-slot Parry for Defense Buffs I wouldn't bother taking it, the damage is Pants! Best defense slotting for it is 2 Acc, 1 Recharge and 3 Defbuff. Hasten might be a good pick instead if you can work it in, for getting Elude up sooner... But I see you aready have Leaping, Fitness, Leadership and Medicine pools.

Agree with -obot's post above: Unless you see yourself doing a LOT of solo stalker hunting in Sirens, you don't need assault and tactics, the +attack and +accuracy bonus they give is basically unnoticeable for a scrapper. If you NEED to hit something pre-Focussed Accuracy, use Build up.

You don't need any Endrec in CJ or SJ. Stick a single jump SO in each (or a Defbuff in CJ) and forget about it.

Main /SR abilities and Attack slotting looks fine for PVP!

Scrappers aren't all "Leeroys".
...Just the good ones...

IMHO a scrapper is not a Berserker, just someone who won't run from a fight. Especially a GOOD fight. That doesn't mean the scrapper doesn't plan out how best to win the fight, just that "Running like a little girl" is not an option that he considers...

Sure, 90% of the time the Tactic a scrapper will come up with is to buff up followed by charging headfirst at the enemy mob and lopping various bits of it off (a scrapper in the order of "complete tactical genius" might decide in advance the order of bits to chop at)... but sometimes it's more fun for a scrapper to hold back and watch a blaster try this first.

You can get DA to double-stack constantly with a VERY VERY SLIGHT 3rd overlap with one recharge SO. It's basically impossible to get a 3rd up constantly... and even if you manage to get that much +recharge, it'd mean you were just using DA as your entire attack chain.

At high levels, usually you'll be alternating between Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly, with either Sting of the Wasp or an AOE/Cone attack thrown in as 'fillers' depending on what you're fighting. You can use DA in a normal attack chain, but if you slot it for defense it eats into your DPS a lot so I generally save it for when I need to effectively solo very large mobs or higher-level Bosses/EB.

There's occasionally a situation in teams where it's useful too... like when the rest of your team faceplants and your're up against about 3 mobs worth of invincible-level enemies... Dull Pain, IH, Hasten and Start stacking DA-SD-DA-GD... you might even win...

One last point:

If you have your heart set on "Tough", Don't put any slots in Boxing or Kick. They are basically useless as attacks since they are very low damage with low magnitude effects, and also cause you to put away your weapon which you'll need to redraw before using any katana moves.

Air Supp. is different in that it's 100% Knockdown chance and as such is a useful "Get AWAY from me!" tool immediately after using clickyheals or Hasten (which will also cause weapon redraw). Apart from Build Up and your other Katana moves, only Brawl does not cause the weapon redraw... and it's not worth slotting!

Have to agree with Lui: No point in them at all, the -def barely lasts till the next attack. I'd suggest tweaking DA's slotting though, it won't quite double stack all the time (when hasten is down) without one recred SO.

To give you an idea, my build is below: My 50 kat/regen's been very very good in PVE (for PVP the power order is fine except for maybe taking tactics for +perception, but would need a few more accs for pre-FA levels). About the only change I'd consider now would be to switch TP Foe and TP to Combat Jumping and SJ. At the moment if I get Speed Boosted, positioning myself for cone attacks is a bit of a pain without Combat Jumping.

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Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder - (http://sherksilver.coldfront.net/index.php)
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Name: Maelwys
Level: 50
Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Katana
Secondary: Regeneration
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01) --> Sting of the Wasp==> Acc(1) Dmg(3) Dmg(5) Dmg(7)
01) --> Fast Healing==> Heal(1) Heal(9) Heal(9)
02) --> Flashing Steel==> Acc(2) Dmg(3) Dmg(5) Dmg(7)
04) --> Reconstruction==> Rechg(4) Rechg(13) Rechg(23) Heal(25) Heal(31)
06) --> Quick Recovery==> EndMod(6) EndMod(11) EndMod(11)
08) --> Divine Avalanche==> Acc(8) Acc(15) Rechg(15) DefBuf(21) DefBuf(21) DefBuf(40)
10) --> Build Up==> Rechg(10) Rechg(13) Rechg(40)
12) --> Teleport Foe==> Acc(12)
14) --> Teleport==> Range(14)
16) --> Integration==> Heal(16) Heal(17) Heal(17) EndRdx(19)
18) --> Dull Pain==> Rechg(18) Rechg(19) Rechg(23) Heal(25) Heal(31)
20) --> Hurdle==> Jump(20)
22) --> Health==> Heal(22) Heal(36) Heal(36)
24) --> Stamina==> EndMod(24) EndMod(29) EndMod(31)
26) --> Soaring Dragon==> Acc(26) Dmg(27) Dmg(27) Dmg(29) Rechg(34) EndRdx(40)
28) --> Instant Healing==> Rechg(28) Rechg(37) Rechg(37) Heal(43) Heal(43)
30) --> Resilience==> DmgRes(30)
32) --> Golden Dragonfly==> Acc(32) Dmg(33) Dmg(33) Dmg(33) Rechg(34) EndRdx(34)
35) --> Hasten==> Rechg(35) Rechg(36) Rechg(37)
38) --> Air Superiority==> Acc(38) Dmg(39) Dmg(39) Dmg(39) Rechg(46)
41) --> Focused Accuracy==> EndRdx(41) EndRdx(42) EndRdx(42) TH_Buf(42) TH_Buf(43)
44) --> Laser Beam Eyes==> Acc(44) Dmg(45) Dmg(45) Dmg(45) Rechg(46) Rechg(46)
47) --> Energy Torrent==> Acc(47) Rechg(48) Rechg(48) EndRdx(48) Dmg(50) Dmg(50)
49) --> Revive==> Rechg(49) Rechg(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Power Slide==> Run(1)
01) --> Sprint==> Jump(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Acc(1)
01) --> Critical Hit==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
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I had Tough at about 30-35 but respecced it out as unnecessary and a waste of two slots. I also respeced out of The Lotus Drops since I didn't like it... same low damage as FS but with much higher recharge/end cost.

With Golden Dragonfly and Soaring Dragon I can pretty much keep any one enemy (up to EB level at least) off it's feet, but Air Supp makes SURE of it... Actually, Air Supp alone can keep an enemy off its feet...

Energy Torrent I've found to be very useful, it's a very high % chance for cone knockdown (does knockback only on -1s or lower) and gives my toon decent AOE damage with Flashing Steel and Soaring Dragon... and it's also a fun way of negating alphas or stopping multiple mobs from attacking another player.

Air Supp and Laser Eyes have the recred SOs in them so they form a no-gap, cyclical attack chain when hasten is running (even without hasten they're pretty close to no-gaps, especially with the odd ET thrown in!). After 40+ levels it's nice to have a backup chain that doesn't do lethal damage but Energy/Smashing!

Can attain superb defense (45%, which without tohit buffs will floor any PvE enemy's tohit in i7) with decent damage output by chaining DA-GD-DA-SD over and over. Combined with the Knockdown in Air Supp. and ET it's a great way of taking down big +5 bosses. In i6 I successfully soloed Paladin as an AV and Infernal as a +4 EB with that tactic, and at high levels I can usually keep two +4 bosses constantly off their feet with the sheer amount of knockup/knockdown in this build.

Haven't had much experience with it in i7 yet, but was able to solo a NRG/INV Brute, two Heavies (not both at once, but they seem very weak to knockdown) and a few Pillboxes fairly easily in RV the other night during the AV-badge event on defiant... That was just with IH/Dull Pain and my standard high-damage attacks, not bothering to even use DA let alone keep it double-stacked.

... the two slots in Revive? I used to have one Endmod SO in it, but I had one slot left over at 50 and it was either that or another Heal SO in Instant Healing (you don't need the 3rd Heal slot in Dull Pain to cap your HP if you get the two HP+ accolades) and I was getting sick of waiting between rezzes in GM/Monster attacks...

Adding a third Heal SO into Reconstruction, IH or Dull Pain gives only a very slight healing increase over 2 SOs (Eg. 49% instead of 44% in the case of Reconstruction). I'd say it's only worth it if you have a surplus of slots.

I still have resilience in at 30 from i6 as a counter to toggle dropping NRGs in PvP. Since the big Toggle Dropping nerf it's less useful, but still prevents sufficient disorients being stacked on me to break through integration.

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Strengths?
+ Heavy Survivability in Regen/Healing and on-demand defense
+ An obscene amount of soft control with all that Knockup/down.
+ Mixture of damage types, backup energy/smashing chain.
+ Switchable between very High DPS, or Good DPS and very high defense.
+ +Perception and good accuracy with FA
+ No downtime. Have never ran low on END against anything except certain EBs and sappers.
+ Carnie missions are easy. Doesn't care about psi damage and has high END regen.
+ Best travel power in the game (IMHO, and with a good bind!)
+ Self rez is useful!!

Weaknesses in this build? Three that I can think of:
+ Heavy Spike Damage (Tough would help very slightly here vs S/L damage, stacked DA usually helps)
+ Heavy Prolonged Endurance Drain (Though QR, Geas of the Kind ones or stacked DA helps a lot)
+ Certain PvP status effects (Repel and fear. MoG gives repel protection but I consider it essentially useless)

Certain TP self tactics can help against repel, but only breakfrees can stop me from getting chain feared.

As a qualifier: you don't "need" tough or IH. ^^

Having said that... IH is better than Tough in almost every situation in PVE and PVP. The only possible time tough would be better is against very high spike damage S/L enemies like DE Monsters in PI or AVs like Battle Maiden. IH is fantastic against any damage, including carnie bosses/sappers that can drop your toggles or drain your endurance (it's a clicky ^^).

In a choice between tough and IH, I'd choose IH every time. It's usually up more often than you'll need it... but recommended slotting is still 3x Recharge (brings it to about a 4 minute downtime)

If you want the maximum benefit, slot 2x Healing to bring it from base +800% to +950% regen (3rd is optional, brings you to 990%). With 3-slotted Health, Fast Healing and Integration you'll be at about +475% regen normally without IH running, without Dull Pain up.

Hitting Dull Pain, Geas the Kind ones accolade and Instant Healing is essentially a short 'God mode' in PvE... and if you throw Hasten in there too you can actually double-stack Dull Pain for a short time with Geas' recharge bonus...

[ QUOTE ]
uhhh, The resistance has always been 71% base hasnt it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Couldn't say since I never took it... but Sherksilver's char builder is quoting 40% base res and 80% base defense.

Although after seeing your comment I checked Joe Chott's planner (the older pre-i6 one) and it's quoting 71% damage resistance. After checking the US boards, the consensus seems to be 71%. Possibly an error in Sherk's builder...?

Regardless, if you're going to take MoG you don't need to slot defense anymore in i7... and if 71% base res is accurate, one dmgres SO should be enough to put you past the cap.

Actually it's now considerably WEAKER now with the defense changes.

Previously a mobs tohit chance versus your defense could be floored at 5%. MoG has super-high defense which effectively always put you at that cap. Now with the way the defense scaling is calculated the floor is slightly higher (opinions range from 7.5 to 10%, plenty of posts about this on the US scrapper forums).

As of the i7 defense changes, 45% defense will effectively floor any enemies accuracy (unless they have tohit buffs). Unslotted MoG gives you 80% defense against everything but PSI and Toxic and 40% resistance (a little over 60% when 3-slotted) against everything except PSI. Slotting any defense buffs in MoG is therefore only useful in PVP when you could get severely debuffed or encounter enemies with a large +tohit buff.

As a side note, there are a large number of /regen scrappers who think MoG is useless and/or against the theme of the powerset. My level 50 kat/regen/body has not got MoG and I have never, ever missed it in PVE. The only use I can see for MoG in a BS or Katana Scrapper build is in PVP to avoid repel (not knockback) effects.

In PVE, stacked Divine Avalanche/Parry and Instant Healing is far better at damage mitigation than MoG could ever hope to be... and you don't lose the ability to be healed for 3 minutes...

Will try to be there shortly before 7 with Maelwys then.

Entrance is from Atlas right?

Should be fun... ^^

Oh an event I didn't see, and it's tomorrow!

Give me a shout if you guys need another Damage Dealer, can bring one of the two toons below.

+ Level 50 Kat/Regen/Body Scrapper "Maelwys" (Melee Lethal Damage with a backup Energy/Smashing chain)
+ Level 45 Human/Dwarf Peacebringer "Unit Omega" ("Instatank" or Energy/Smashing Damage Blapper)

Mael doesn't run out of endurance unless badly debuffed, is more accurate and a good bit more survivable than Unit when dealing out maximum damage at full steam... so unless we're fighting AVs with strong Lethal damage resistance or REALLY need another tank I'd prefer to bring Maelwys along.

Think yourself lucky.

I remember a Katie Hannon TF about a month ago when a Shadow Cyst crystal spawned in wave eight of the ten AV ambushes.

Yes folks, you heard that right, we were AMBUSHED by a Shadow Cyst crystal.
The next wave didn't attack till we disposed of the AV, the surrounding Cabal flunkies, a crapload of Unbound Nictus and one very angry Crystal. (And tasted dirt several times of course...)

You mentioned that your Brother is likely taking Katana, both Katana and Broad sword have an excellent damage mitigation tool in Parry/DivineAvalanche. It's basically the same idea as Claws' Follow-up except that instead of a 20% damage buff it does about 12% defense buff (24% 3-slotted) and can be stacked with itself.

In terms of survivability the pair of you should be able to take pretty much anything together, if you encounter something very tough that can't be handled normally or is resistant to Knockdown (Air Superiority with one Recharge SO is your friend!!) then he could Divine-Avalanche tank it while you clean up the rest of the surrounding mob.

But that's going to be a very rare occurence. Given that a single regen scrapper can still solo anything up to and including 8-man purple spawns or Infernal as a +4 Elite Boss... There's very rarely anything that two /regen scrappers cannot handle.

It's a good button to hit immediately after you use Hasten or a clickyheal, when your sword is sheathed anyway. If you end up going the route of Epic Power Pools it also chains nicely with other non-sword powers.

Even fighting with a sword out furing an attack chain, I've found it's usually worth firing off AS and waiting for a redraw rather than let a tough boss get back on his feet again. Would be situational in this case though rather than part of a general attack chain.

Appears to be effective no matter what level the mobs you're fighting, have only noticed a very slight decrease in duration for higher level mobs. With 2 Acc/2Holddur/2Recharge in it, can reliably hit purples and keep them mezzled for a good amount of time (against purples with hasten up, I believe you can set it on autofire and it's just short of perma again).

I've just gotten started into carnie mission arcs and tend to fire pulsar off after the tank runs into a new mob, so far it's proving an effective countermeasure against their psi damage and endurance drainage. Can always Quantum flight or Essence Boost and switch to dwarf anyway if we pull too much aggro... Dwarfie's actually fairly good at taking care of Dark Ring Mistresses, especially with an End Buff

Another extremely good use of pulsar is right before you fire off a Thunderous Blast (indeed I usually Essence Boost >> Conserve Power >> Build Up >> Pulsar >> TB, then pop one blue and keep on fighting). If any Minions or Lieutenants are left standing, they will likely be mezzled and you won't get anywhere near the amount of retaliation coming your way.

Bah, again with the Sundays....

Replying to my own post, bad form i know... =D

I'm now level 35 on my PB, so for anyone wondering:
Pulsar can be made just short of Perma at about the 25 second mark Using 2xAcc, 2x Recred, 2x Hold duration.
With Hasten running, it's perma.

By itself it mezzles minions 100% of the time, lieuts a little better than 50% of the time. Does not Mez bosses.
Worth it? Heck yeah! Especially for a Human form blapper build... Pulsar + Solar Flare = Crowd control!

Only gripe I have is the quite long activation time.
If you use SS and Stealth beforehand though, it's not an issue...

[ QUOTE ]
If he gets in trouble he can turn on Superspeed and wait for Integration to regen his health how do you beat that?

[/ QUOTE ]

Any scrapper that runs away from a fight is treated as a disgrace to all that his AT stands for and is automatically disqualified!

Another Sunday??!?

Not going to be able to make it any more than I was the other two... got church commitments regularly on Sunday evenings.

Have fun though.

Black, can say that with Stamina and Quick Recovery 3 slotted, my Scrapper was more than happy with just a range SO in Teleport. He doesn't run out of endurance except when trying to cross Independence Port lengthways chain TPing immediately with FA, Sprint and Integration all running. If FA and Sprint are turned off he gains a little end while TPing. And he can still beat Superspeederrs to the mission... I *Highly* recommend this bind.

You will want two-three endreds and two-three ToHit Buffs in FA. Running this with 3 Endred and 2 Tohits I have never had any trouble hitting anything short of +6 Boss mobs in PVE ever. Endurance cost is very high for it though.

I'm a big fan of Divine Avalanche/Parry. I'd highly recommend slotting it 2 Accuracy/1 Recharge/3 Defbuff eventually if you can. This will let you set up a 46% defense buff in under 5 seconds when things get out of hand by simply starting to double stack it.

In PVE I've never had much trouble getting a TP Foe to hit with just an Accuracy SO in it. Running FA this practically never misses on less than a Boss. Can understand why you'd want it buffed for PvP though, but remember that firing off Build Up just before you TP them is better than sticking two Accuracy SOs in there.

I've soloed a few GMs with just Dullpain, Reconstruction and a Divine Avalanche-Soaring Dragon-Divine Avalanche-Golden Dragonfly chain. Soloed Infernal as a +3 EB using that, Clickyheals, Hasten and IH.

I'd never skip DA ^^ +45% def buff (2acc/1recred/3defbuff overlapped) is far too useful. I'd never take MoG. Partly because I think it's against the idea of regeneration, but mostly because I've found that:

1./ I don't like to have to run away when it drops.
2./ Anything that MoG will do, Stacked Divine Avalanche and IH/Dull Pain will do BETTER. (IMO, obviously!)
[They also work against auto-hit and Psionic damage... try MoG there and you're begging for a faceplant...]

If you want a panic button END boost, grab the Geas-of-the-kind-ones accolade. Has worked for me several times. Generally between DA and a perma-knockdown chain (I highly recommend SD, GD, Air Supp and Energy Torrent), you'll be laughing against anything short of soloing an AV. ET and Air Supp do knockdown on most hits on anything below an Elite Boss, so if careful you can generally keep two bosses on their backs constantly.

I got revive at 49 for PVP base raids mainly, although it's nice to essentially be "unkillable" in a tough AV fight.

- - - - - -

The only thing I found really annoying about Katana was that lethal damage is the only thing you throw out, and if a mob resists it then you'll do sub-par damage. Even if Hasten is running and you're constantly chaining GD/SD/SOTW.

I went kinda a funny route there, with a backup Air Supp --> Laser Beam Eye --> Air Supp chain. With hasten running, 1acc/3dam/1recred in air supp and 1acc/3dam/2recreds in LBE this can be chained without any interruptions, throwing out an occasional Energy Torrent (1acc/2recred/1endred/2dam) achieving a decent damage smashing/energy perma-knockdown chain.

Katana's generally great with Single-Target enemies (has considerably better control than Broadsword but less spike damage) and passable at AOE damage. I respecced out of The Lotus Drops, but that was really down to personal preference, it's a decent attack when you slot it right. I found that between Flashing Steel and Soaring Dragon (Energy Torrent is nice too due to the Knockdown) that I rarely needed a PBAoE, but I can see use for it soloing or in PVP.

My new PB isn't high enough yet to have tested this, but I was planning to include it in my build with 2 accs, 2 durations and 2 recharge reduction SOs.

According to Hero Builder you can get it more or less perma (very slight overlap) by slotting with with 2 durations and 2 recharges and firing it every 25-26 seconds.

...mind you the builder seems to say it has a 15 second base duration (rather than the 8 quoted above) and 45 secs recharge...

From the reading I've done on the US forums it seems the Mag is high enough to affect Minions and Lieuts, but won't affect bosses without criticaling. If it IS possible to get perma-effect, then you could basically take the minions and lieuts out of the fight while you beat on the bosses. Might be handy for Nemesis missions!

...anyone actually tested the duration/recharge when slotted?

<3 Golden Dragonfly also.
Especially after a Soaring Dragon.

But the best animation in the set I think is The Lotus Drops. Just port or drop in beside a new team and fire it off! W00t! Your coolness factor just shot through the roof! (Ok, so you look a bit like a ponce waving a toothpick next to a broadsworder... but...)

Functionally? Meh, I suppose Katana in a 1-vs-one fight simply because your attacks will be available more often giving you slightly more control. That's if you can withstand the spike damage of a good BU-Headsplitter though...

It's really personal preference- higher spike damage, or more control? Slightly OT, I've beaten BS/Regen Scrappers in Warburg (my toon being Kat/Regen). But even I'll admit it was mostly because I had Hasten in my build by then and used Divine Avalanche a lot. With IH running, it was a standoff... when IH wore off... my Dullpain was up and I had a constant +45% Def.

I was under the impression that either by using Hasten or by slotting Rage with about five Green Recharge Reductions, Rage can still be brought completely under the 120 duration recharge time and become truly perma. Setting it on auto will then mean that the 10 secs mezzled downtime never occurs...?

(According to Hero Builder, 5 RecReds brings Rage to about 116 secs recharge time, 4 brings it down to 118.5 secs but Rage takes about 2 secs to reactivate)

I should be able to make it if there ends up being another exemplar slot free and you guys would like another melee character... if it ends up being full then no worries, I've plenty of badge hunting to do! ^^

Maelwys, 39 (Currently) Katana/Regen Scrapper

Level range on the first respec is 24-33, right? Should do decent sustainable damage @24, but at 26 (DMG slotted at 27) i'd get "Soaring Dragon" Katana's first heavy-hitter.

I've been meaning to take that 2nd Endred SO out of integration for a while now...

Knight Stalker (There might be another though!)

Nimmer